


It Must Be Something in the Water

by allthebros



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Fantasizing, Fuckbuddies, M/M, Masturbation, Porn, Prostate Milking, Seaside, Secret Relationship, Siblings, Small Towns, Starting Over, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26776696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebros/pseuds/allthebros
Summary: After five years away, living on the west coast, coming to terms with his sexuality, Patrick comes back to his coastal hometown to be with his family again and to start working at his dad's dealership, determined to get his life back on track, to leave behind all emotional messes and complications. But on the first morning of his return he meets Jonny, his sister's new boyfriend, and falls hard in lust with him, throwing an enormous wrench in his plan.“You’ll meet Jonny, too,” Erica says, taking a sharp turn to make the exit she almost missed, sharp enough Patrick has to resist the urge to grab the door handle.“Who?”She glances at him. “Jonny. Jonathan. Jess’ new—”“New boyfriend, right.” He’d almost forgotten. “Hot like a Greek God, but like, in a Canadian way.”“Who told you that?” Erica laughs.“Jackie.”“Well, she’s not wrong.”
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Comments: 34
Kudos: 237
Collections: 1988: Locked In





	It Must Be Something in the Water

**Author's Note:**

> omgggggggg it's here! It's done! I can't believe it! I have never written something so long so fast. It was painful. It was worth it. I started something new, an expansion on a vague idea written one night in a chat, thinking it would be 10k long *at most*. Ha. I was as naïve and clueless as Patrick is in this story. 
> 
> All throughout this process, my gdocs was called "I Wanna Fuck My Sister's Boyfriend, AITA?" so take that as its alternate title and a fine little summary.
> 
> **thanks;** I wanna give the biggest thanks of all to sorrylatenew, as usual, for just being the best bro one could wish for being: supportive and patient and encouraging and patient and helpful and patient. Also for the beta. I told her 'this will be short-ish, 10k at most' and then it... wasn't. And she did it anyway, and right to the deadline because I took forever to write and edit. For this I'm forever in her debt and anything wrong in this is entirely on me. <333 Also, thank you to M, and J, and S for their support and enthusiasm, and for everyone on twitter and tumblr who have replied to me or messaged me with compliments and excitement. It really helped me not give up on this. Finally, thanks to the mods of this fest. I'm eternally grateful that they created it in the first place, giving me a deadline that allowed me to write, and for their patience as I pushed back my posting date twice. They were very gracious and helpful. 
> 
> **extra content notes;** Despite the summary, this fic isn't tagged with 'cheating' for various reasons, but there are lots of grey areas around this subject in it and situations that some people might interpret as such/as emotional cheating, and lying. If this is a sensitive subject to you, please see the end notes for (perhaps spoilery) details before reading. Other than what's tagged, this fic also contains: mentions and/or brief descriptions of rimming, frottage, handjobs, fingering; lying and/or omission of truth and/or hiding the truth; some pretty heavy fixation, and sexual fantasizing over one person, and brief mentions of grief.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Three fingers.

He’d spit on his asshole, smear lube over it, and that’s it. Three fingers all at once. No other prep, just a rough push inside. Patrick’s sure he could take it. Sure they’d slip in easy. Sure he’d open up for Patrick with a moan he’d feel in his dick. He’d put him on his back to see the face he makes, his abs contract, the arch of his body. No. On all fours. To spread his ass open. Fuck that ass. 

_Fuck_ that ass.

The annual Kane BBQ spreads all over the backyard, and it’s a baking sort of a day, bodies like packed sausages on a grill, a dozen sunburns in the making—theirs isn’t the kind of skin that browns. 

His, though. _His_. 

Even from this distance, easy to see, it’s red from the sweat he’s carrying over his neck and shoulders, shimmery-saltiness in the sun, but obvious it’s not gonna flake off tomorrow, both in how the rest of him is brown from several weeks of summer already—tan lines stark at the edge of his swim trunks—and from the fact that he’s been sitting in the full sun for a long while without feeling the need to move.

Sitting... with Patrick’s sister in his lap.

She’s perched on his thick as fuck thigh, knees up with her feet resting on the other one, completely comfortable. He doesn’t even have to put his hand on her back to steady her, just holds a beer in one and waves with the other as he talks. That’s how wide his lap is, how open his legs are, and Patrick wonders who else he’s spread them for. And if he’d spread them for someone like him. 

Couple weeks ago, at breakfast, he’d shown up to eat with the family and Patrick’s mother had apologized that it was so early, but he’d just smiled and said he’d been up already, went fishing, did some yoga. Patrick hadn’t stopped thinking about that the whole day, and now, too, watching that big gap between his knees that his sister bridges so easily. 

He wants to test the flexibility there. Wants to press hard with his hands on the insides of his thighs and split him open, as far as he can go. As far as to get a choked up little sound of warning when it’s close to too much, and then maybe he’d be stretched enough for Patrick to fit his shoulders in there, keep him open while he screws a thumb in dry and sucks his dick off. 

He just wants to see. 

That’s all he’s been thinking about for weeks—made up shit in his mind, secret-hot and shameful but safe, too. Meaner about it today to erase the afternoon at the beach from the inside of his lids when he closes them. Override what he almost did. 

His sister moves, distracts from where his eyes were lingering on the dark glimpse of skin leading to his groin, and there’s guilt there, when his eyes skid over her without being helped. But he laughs at himself a little, feels his mouth twist in a quick grimace. He’s a sick motherfucker, but thoughts haven’t ever hurt nobody. 

There are Kanes (and co.) everywhere—in the pool and around it, working the grills, coming in and out of the house with food laden arms, with beers and kids, with pale white skin slathered in coconut-smelling cream. No one’s really paying attention to him, ass comfortable in a plastic chair by the back fence behind the deep end of the pool, in the thick shade under the canopy of a big oak tree that grows just over in their neighbour’s backyard. Sunglasses on, legs stretched in front of him, hands crossed over his stomach, he probably looks like he’s dozing off, getting some respite for his skin, others scattered in similar predicaments in different spots. Looks like he’s just enjoying being out with his family, with cousins running around, occasionally splashing his feet as they zoom by to jump back into the water.

He looks innocent.

He is, really. He is innocent. He’s just watching. He’s just been watching.

Filthy thoughts, fantasies, that’s all this is. Weeks of it and he’s good at it. Good at taking the heaviness that settles in his bones, his muscles, his stomach. Good at making himself feel it without looking like he is.

On the other side of the pool: his sister’s boyfriend. 

He laughs, head tipped back, exposing his long throat, the smooth skin there that Patrick would ravage with his mouth. He kisses her shoulder, says something in her ear that makes her smile. Patrick’s not jealous, he just wants to stick two fingers between those lips and see if he’d close his mouth around them and suck. His hands curl over the ends of the chair’s armrests, squeeze tight. 

There are two dozen people in between them at any given time, so when it feels like Patrick’s getting stared at right back—dark eyes behind sunglasses—he doesn’t worry about it. He’s seen those eyes up close and the memory of that day twists uncomfortable in his stomach, the skimmed edge of what almost happened, so he presses forward in his mind instead, imagines how they’d widen in shock or pleasure if Patrick took his dick and made it quick and rough. Thinks about how they’d flutter closed if he sucked on his hole.

If his sister was a friend instead, he’d ask her if she’s eating that ass. And if he likes it. If he makes pretty little moans every time he gets tongue-fucked, or if he’s a loud one. All the nasty shit.

It’s really fucking hilarious, to come back home with intentions to quit this sort of shit, to leave the consequences of his own rash behaviour behind, just to find kryptonite in his own home. 

He’ll have to stop eventually. Stop the highlight reels of porn running through his head with the same dude as their star. Stop the jerking off, the showing off. The guilt. 

But today is not that day. He needs some filth to forget he can still taste the weed, the stink of wet breaths mingling. 

He gets carried away. Gets too much in his head that he almost misses the headiness move from his limbs to between his legs and he knows he’s gotta get up and get out because he’s not having a boner when there are kids around, and more relatives than he can count. 

So he gets up. Walks around the pool on the hedge side to stay in the shade, takes off his hat and runs a hand over his wet hair and puts it back on, uses the move to glance again his way. Can’t help it. Gaze with a mind of its own every time he’s in proximity.

He’s looking back. To the side and then a little over his shoulder.

Patrick's steps don’t falter but his heart does. Skips quick in his chest and is followed by a zing of heat between his legs that rivals the one outside. He gives a little wave, acknowledges him casual-like—hey what’s up man hope you have fun bye— and goes in through the back door, past the too-loud speakers blasting top 40 music, into the kitchen with the cool tiles under his bare feet that do nothing to help how hard he’s getting. Into the hall, to the front of the house and up the stairs to the second floor where no one is allowed but his family, except to use the bathroom.

He dips inside the guest room—doesn’t bother making it to his own where the window looks out onto the backyard and this one faces in the other direction. The other direction feels better right now. He closes the door—the noises of the party, the music, becoming a muffled sound that he breathes into, once, twice, with his forehead pressed against the wood, before he turns, avoids the bed and slumps against the back wall instead. Positions himself so that if someone comes in, he’ll see them first.

He lets himself feel it then, lets it roll over him as he tugs his swim trunks down below his balls and takes his dick in hand, thick-hard in a dizzying short span of time. It’s not new, this feeling, the quickfire desire over this one man, the need to put him on his back. And neither is this, pumping his fist quick over himself because of it—him. He shouldn’t and it’s a bit sweeter because of it. Shame a sobering bother in any other circumstances except when he’s crossed that threshold and it makes him leak instead, a twisty feeling in his veins that leads to something good in his dick.

He’d milk his prostate. He’d get his fingers in his ass and tap there, rub hard and press until he’s a wrecked mess. Until he comes over himself, comes enough Patrick would lean in, catch it with his mouth.

Despite his initial forethought, he misses the doorknob turning, head heavy on his neck and eyes on his own fist, his own dick in his grip, a slightly uncomfortable slide without proper slick but not enough for him to bother stopping, good it’s in its own way. He misses the door opening and only looks up with a jolt of fear when he catches a small movement, feels more than sees eyes on his skin. And then another jolt of something else too, fear still, but hot recognition, lust flashing quick in the swoop of his stomach when he sees who’s there. 

He’s watching Patrick. 

Door half closed behind him, hand on the knob, shirtless, only in his swimsuit, and _he’s watching Patrick_.

Patrick’s hand stutters, slows, but he meets those dark eyes and sees them flit between Patrick’s face and his cock, sees his mouth part, sees him wet his lips like his mouth has gone dry, and there’s a twitch in his other hand that catches Patrick’s attention but ends up going nowhere. 

Patrick picks up his pace again. 

The only sound in the room is his harsh breathing—a loud panted noise that’s almost embarrassing, but then Jonny closes the door completely and a high little moan crosses Patrick’s lips and that’s worse. 

He’ll have to stop. He’ll have to put a stop to it. Pry his own hand off his cock and pull his trunks over it and walk past him and out and away. If he takes one step towards Patrick, he’ll have to. 

But he doesn’t. 

Doesn’t make any other move. Doesn’t cross the space between them, or say anything, or touch himself—even though Patrick can see it, obvious when he’s wearing so little, material clingy already when dry and even more so now, distended at the front. He just watches _back_.

And Patrick’s not gonna last. He’s not. 

Was already geared up for a quickie, already too far along to do anything but get there as fast as he could, get back to the party before anyone goes looking for him (anyone _else_ ), but he wishes now he could make it last. Could stretch the moment out and be held in it for far longer than he’s able to. The wrongness of the moment not registering as anything else other than heat, a punch of it to his chest, his cock, into his knees so he has to press harder into the wall at his back to hold himself up.

He wants to _milk him dry_.

He comes with that thought—a shout, a lurch forward, curled over himself and his eyes screwed shut even though he didn’t mean for it to happen, to break contact, but unable not to when he’s pulsing hard into his other hand, cupped at the tip to try and limit the mess, almost painful in the release. 

He’s still coming down from it, still trying to catch his breath when he hears the door open, then close again with a click. 

“Jonny,” slips through his lips, too soft and too late. 

*

He meets Jonathan Toews for the first time three weeks earlier.

*

He doesn’t sleep the whole flight home, a red eye to the east coast. Sinks into his seat instead, arms crossed, and tries to shift back to the version of himself he was before he left, except better and wiser. Kinda. Hopefully. 

He watches the progress of the plane on the screen embedded in the headrest in front of him, and the closer he gets to his destination, the more excited he is. He expected more apprehension considering the nervous energy coursing through him when he boarded the plane in LA, but as the number of miles left in the trip diminishes, he’s more awake, more thrilled to arrive.

He’s looking around for Erica when he hears a joyous shout and he turns in time to see her run towards him.

She jumps into his arms and clings to his neck and says, “Are you staying? For real?” like he hasn’t told her many times already through text. Like she hadn’t called him just yesterday to tell him angrily he better not fuck with her. She sounds younger than she is, like she’d slipped into a version of her from their teens, and he hugs her tiny frame back, tells her,

“Yeah, for real,” still feeling that strange displaced feeling that’s been running underneath everything else, that he has to assume means he’s home. 

She guides him to where she parked the car, talking his ear off in an uncharacteristic manner all the way there, and as they sit, and as they drive away from the airport and onto the interstate, up the coast.

“You’ll meet Jonny, too,” Erica says, taking a sharp turn to make the exit she almost missed, sharp enough Patrick has to resist the urge to grab the door handle.

“Who?”

She glances at him. “Jonny. Jonathan. Jess’ new—”

“New boyfriend, right.” He’d almost forgotten. “Hot like a Greek God, but like, in a Canadian way.”

“Who told you that?” Erica laughs.

“Jackie.”

“Well, she’s not wrong.”

“When?” he asks, tries not to sound bitchy about it, but now that he’s off the plane, sister at his side, set on the road to get back to his parents, his other sisters, fatigue is catching up to him fast. The thought of having to meet someone that isn’t family (which will be _a lot_ in and of itself) just makes him want to hide in the trunk of Erica’s car and let her tell them all that he wasn’t at the airport, he missed his flight, what a jerk. 

Erica smiles again, a quick knowing twist of her lips followed by an eye roll. “Not today, don’t worry. I wouldn’t want you to bite his pretty face off.”

“I’ll bite your pretty face off.”

“Clever.”

Patrick gives her the finger and she sticks her tongue out at him, punches him light on the shoulder. “Missed you, asshole.”

He looks at her, her known profile, chest tight with the missing of her, tighter than he’d want to admit, her words settling over him like that’s all he was waiting for before allowing himself to let go. “Yeah,” he says, closes his eyes. “Me too.”

*

He’s awake. 

It’s _ungodly_ early.

Thin dawn light filters through the curtains of his childhood bedroom—now also a storage space for his mom’s stationary bike and treadmill—and he blinks slow in the gloom, stares into space as it lightens a notch without moving before he throws the covers off himself.

The public parking lot by the beach is practically empty when he pulls into a spot—only a few cars of people here to fish, to surf, to walk the beach and see the sun rise. He turns the engine off, breathes into the silence. It smells like new in here even though it isn’t, technically, but it’s new to him in any case, spotlessly clean with almost no scratches in sight.

“If you’re gonna work with us, you should look the part,” his dad had said with a smile while handing him the keys, finger through the ring as they dangled. 

Now better and wiser, he’d swallowed his first impulse to push back. To say that he was a grownass man who could buy his own grownass car. That he wasn’t a teenager anymore who needed his daddy to pay for everything, and that he wasn’t coming back home with his tail between his legs because he’d failed somehow and needed them to be sweet to him so he’d feel better about himself. 

He’d clenched his teeth on it, swallowed his annoyance and took the keys with a smile that stopped feeling forced the moment it appeared on his lips. It was easy to see that his dad was just happy. Happy Patrick had come home. Happy Patrick wanted to work at the dealership with him. His mom, on that same phone call where Erica threatened him, had told him how she hadn’t seen his father this excited about something in a long time. He’s never been the best person with words, his dad, so he’d bought Patrick a car. 

They’d all missed him. And he missed them too. It was different, being back for good. Knowing he wasn’t gonna get on a plane back to the west coast after a few days.

Northern Atlantic air hits his nose as soon as he steps out, chilly, briny, sharp and utterly familiar. This too, he’s missed. There’s an ocean in California obviously but it’s not the same. Not like this, a sweeping feeling of recognition. Patrick never thought he’d be happy to be kind of cold. 

Gulls cry overhead, and the air is heavy with water and fish smells. The tide is low and Patrick takes off his shoes, leaves them in the car, rolls up his jeans and walks down the long stretch of bared beach. His feet sink into wet sand and he keeps an eye on his toes, has to avoid broken shells, dead crabs, and driftwood. 

A few feet away from the waves, the sky is now layers of pinks and oranges, pale yellows, the sun a bright disk over the horizon.

It’s good. To be home. 

Better than he thought it’d be. 

*

He’s almost back to his car—feet covered in sand now, clinging between his toes—when he hears someone call his name.

“Patrick? Patrick Kane?”

There’s a man jogging towards him when he turns—red McGill university sweater, shorts, sand up to his shins, and a hat that’s sold in every tourist shop on this strip of town, lid tipped back. He has a fishing rod over a shoulder, cooler in one hand, tackle box under his arm.

He’s gorgeous.

The kind that still catches Patrick sideways, surprising even though it shouldn’t be anymore. A telltale hit to his gut so powerful it’s a fucking mystery his denial was ever strong enough to let him ignore it, what it means. He’s tall, clearly fit judging by the solid thighs and the way his shorts are stretched tight around their width. Dark eyes, tanned skin. A charming crooked kind of smile that hooks Patrick in immediately.

If he had to create a dictionary about himself and fill it with all things Patrick Kane, he’d feel very comfortable using this guy’s picture as prime example beside the entry titled ‘His Type’

“Uh, yeah?” he says, pushes his hands in his pockets, squints a little at the light, bright over the guy's shoulder now that he moves, casts him in shadows.

The man smiles some more, drops his cooler by his feet, his tackle box, and stretches a hand out. “Jonathan Toews. Jonny. I’m your sister’s—”

“New boyfriend! Yeah, man, how are you?” 

Well. Jackie _really_ wasn’t wrong.

Jonny’s hand is soft and solid, long fingers wrapping easy around his, nails clipped short and clean, forearm strong. 

“How d’you know—?”

“Jess showed me pictures.” Jonny shifts his rod to the other shoulder. “And she mentioned you arriving yesterday. Trip went well?”

“Yeah, not bad, you know.” He shrugs, and Jonny makes a commiserating face, a silly grimace that Patrick gets the impression he doesn’t mean to look that way but can’t stop it from doing so. He responds to it with an immediate small quirk of his lips. 

“Is that why you’re out here so early then?”

“Couldn’t sleep, yeah. Flying always fucks with me. Doesn’t matter whichever way I go.”

The silence stretches long enough after that the need to fill it starts to itch at Patrick. Jonny’s jawline is sharp, the light hitting it so that there’s a warm shadow right underneath that makes Patrick want to step into the space between them and press his nose there, an easy impulse that surprises him with its clarity. 

He looks away, squints some more until Jonny says, “Hey, you wanna grab some breakfast? Was thinking of going to Maddie’s after dropping this at my camper,” and shakes his rod, gives his cooler a little kick. 

He’d been thinking about going back to bed, dreaming about sinking into clean sheets, ocean smell stuck in his nose, but finds himself replying, “Sure,” without thinking about it, no hesitation. Tells himself he’s famished. “Why not.”

Patrick has spent a large part of the last few years learning to navigate the complicated and not so complicated ways of figuring out if a dude is Into Dick, and he’s already halfway down his mental list—a habit triggered by another crooked smile—before he remembers who this is. 

He grabs his shoes from his car but they both walk barefoot along the sandy boardwalk, a ten minute mostly quiet affair, then up the street, wiping sand off over the grass of the yards they pass, to a little campground slightly up the hill, nestled by the edge of a cliff. 

It’s similar to a dozen others in this town—campers or cabins or tents—but Patrick remembers coming to this one once or twice as a kid with boys he’d meet on the beach, here on vacation with their parents, to grab snacks, sausages, water guns, living it up as the local boy, the one that knows all the good spots. This one rents campers, each with fake little white picket fences around a square of astroturf in front of them, a little barbecue that can be rented at extra cost, little paths meeting up to a central road like a miniature suburbia. 

Jonny walks past all of them to the back of the grounds where he’s rented one of the few empty lots available, no neighbour on the right, one of the left, right at the treeline. 

“Seemed a waste to rent one when I got my own,” he says, knocks on the trailer with a flat hand by way of explanation. 

“No picket fence, though.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Jonny laughs.

It’s the pop-up kind of trailer—small, clearly old but clean—and Jonny dips inside to store his fishing gear, tells Patrick he needs a minute to arrange the fish in the freezer. Patrick tells him to take his time, and sits on the picnic table between the two lots. 

He’s quickly back with shoes and a towel, drops the first in the grass by the door, and sits on his doorstep to wipe the sand off his feet with the other, and it’s hard, Patrick realizes, catching himself again, it’s hard not to watch him constantly. It’s hard for Patrick to not do that. To not let his attention linger on the bone of his ankle, or the shape of his calf muscles. Immediately appealing and fucking ridiculous. 

Jonny’s thick. The kind of thick Patrick’s spent the last few years figuring out he’s really into. The kind of thick easy to spot even with the way he’s dressed, sweater long enough to cover half his ass, but riding up at the back constantly because of the size of it. Something Patrick had time to notice when he had to move behind him coming up the hill to let a bike pass. And it was frankly so in his face, so obvious in size and shape he doesn’t think anyone would blame him for drinking in the sight. 

It strikes him then—as Jonny’s putting on his birks, as he throws the towel to Patrick so he can get rid of his own sand, and not even a full day after his homecoming—that it was fucking stupid of him to think things would magically be different here. 

But things don’t have to get messy. There’s no mess in just looking. 

*

Maddie’s not quite far enough from the beachside to be the type of place only frequented by locals, but it’s far enough that its clientele isn’t all tourists either. Any other time of the day and he might actually know a handful of people in here, and the owner—Maddie’s son, Jeff—would recognize him instantly, but he’s grateful he doesn’t have to go through the motions of welcome-backs and hey-look-who-finally-shows-ups quite yet. He’s got an army of aunts and uncles and cousins to see in the upcoming days and that’s enough for now. 

The place is a good old-fashioned diner if good old-fashioned diners were vomited upon by a nautical themed pinterest board (Jess’ very apt and accurate description), and the place already smells like fish and batter (fish and chips all day, baby!). Patrick takes a deep lungful of it as Jonny leads them to the last booth and drops in the seat with his back against the wall. 

There are new things on the menu Patrick’s never seen, and he voices that, says, “Didn’t know they had gluten-free pancakes here,” with more annoyance in his tone than he really feels. 

“That’s how I discovered the place,” Jonny says, unphased or not picking up on it. “Well, Jess took me here when I mentioned I didn’t eat gluten. She said it’s only been a couple years, though.”

“Huh.” And then looking up, “You gluten-free?”

“Yeah,” Jonny replies, still scanning the menu, lip a pale pink where it’s bitten between his teeth, sticking Patrick there on the sight for a moment. 

“For health reasons or… Health reasons?”

Jonny laughs—his teeth are white, _mostly_ straight—and closes his menu and the moment along with it, unsticking Patrick. “Actual health reasons,” he says. “But I’m also into that stuff. Like, nutrition and all that. You?”

“Heh.” A side to side motion of his hand. “Not enough for California, but more than for here.” Then adds, “Not today, though,” as the waitress approaches. 

He doesn’t recognize her—no more than seventeen with faded pink hair and dark roots under her MADDIE’S!! red cap and the pissy kind of look that working at this hour deserves. 

“Fish and chips,” Patrick orders when she asks. “And some water.”

“Oh my god,” Jonny says, so appalled Patrick thinks if he was wearing pearls he’d be clutching them.

He laughs and waits for Jonny to order pancakes and a smoothie, then settles more comfortably in the booth. He knocks his foot against Jonny’s once the waitress is gone. “I’ve been dreaming of those fish and chips for five years.” 

“They don’t have them in California?”

“Not like these.”

“Haven’t you visited in all that time?”

Patrick takes off his cap, drops it on the bench beside him, runs a hand through his messy hair. He probably needs a haircut, his curls keep falling over his forehead making the skin itchy.

“I have,” he says. “But only for the holidays and shit like that. Thanksgiving. I would have probably been assassinated in my sleep if I’d eaten anything not homemade with love by my very large, very loving, often overbearing family.” He says it with a smile, can feel it on his face, with warmth in his chest, never really without fondness even when he’s bitching about them.

“Fair enough.” Jonny takes off his hat too. His hair is dark, not very long but clearly growing out from an earlier haircut, long enough to run a hand into. He follows that with his sweater, a well-worn soft-looking t-shirt underneath that’s just tight enough, clinging to his pecs, sleeves tight around his biceps, but looser over his stomach for easy access with a wandering hand.

His neck is long, something Patrick couldn’t really see with the hoodie around it, the collar of his t-shirt stretched, showing his sharp collarbones. There’s a hollow there, at the meeting of both, and it makes Patrick squirm in his seat like he’s a Victorian man who just got a glimpse of an ankle.

“So,” Jonny starts, interrupting his thoughts. “What did you do in California?”

Patrick reaches for his glass of water, takes a sip. “Jess didn’t tell you?”

This early in their acquaintance and Patrick can already tell Jonny has this way about him, looks at the person he’s talking to with very very dark and steady eyes, like he’s truly, one-hundred percent paying attention to what’s being said. “She said she wasn’t sure.”

“Yeah. well.” Patrick huffs something close to a laugh, presses on with, “Me neither,” and is grateful when Jonny doesn’t push the matter. “Gonna be working at my dad’s dealership now, though.”

“You like it?”

“I’m good at it.”

Jonny’s eyebrow ticks upwards. “That’s not what I asked.”

“I like being good at something.”

For five years, when he’d stay on the phone long enough to get to that point in a conversation with his mom, she'd tell him a variation of ‘this isn’t like you’ that was always a bit hurtful in its obvious judgement, but also, if he’s honest, not totally wrong. He’s just annoyed that he somehow wasn’t allowed to figure that out himself without catching flack for it. He knows that now, somewhat. At least knows he’s had enough of floundering and uncertainty, of feeling inadequate. Knows he wants to do something he’s familiar with, something he can hone, something to throw his focus on that isn’t—Well. Wants something he can be good—no, be _the best_ at. 

“I can understand that,” Jonny says. 

“And you? I think Jess mentioned something about a house?”

Jonny nods, swallows the gulp of water he’d just taken, Adam’s apple bobbing prominently, and Patrick presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, shifts his eyes to the napkin holder. 

“My grandparents’ summer house. We used to come here all the time when I was young. I’m from Québec, I don’t know if you’ve been told.”

Hot like a Greek God, but like, in a Canadian way. 

“It was mentioned. So you speak French?”

“For sure.”

“You don’t have an accent.” 

They have a lot of French Canadian tourists here, especially in late July and early August, Patrick would recognize the accent anywhere, and if he focuses real hard on each syllable, he can probably hear an echo of it behind some words, but he’s not really trying, distracted by Jonny’s hands. He keeps touching things with his fingertips, fidgets a lot, turns his glass one way, then the other, picks at his napkin, the salt shaker, back to his glass.

“My dad’s anglophone. From Winnipeg. I was raised in both languages.”

“How did they meet?”

“Dad came to Québec to practice his French. Met my mom and ended up staying.”

“Awwww, that’s adorable.” He presses his hand over his heart, gently mocking, and enjoys the snorting laugh that gets him, the eyeroll.

“But yeah, so we used to come here a lot on vacation and my grandparents ended up buying this small cottage here. They’ve both passed away now and I’ve inherited it. I thought I’d come and sell it but.” He shrugs, dips his chin so Patrick can’t make out what crosses over his face, gone and replaced when their food finally arrives. 

Patrick leans over his plate and inhales the greasy fishy smell of it. “Oh fuck yeah,” he whispers, locks eyes with Jonny when he looks up in a moment that lasts maybe two seconds, maybe more, or feels that way anyway. Feels like it’s just this side of too long when Jonny finally blinks, and says, “Gross,” and it’s easier to laugh and not linger, not wonder if there was something there or if it’s just Patrick’s dick letting him know he hasn’t gotten laid in a while. 

*

So Jonny’s renovating his grandparents’ cottage. Jonny’s cottage, now, Patrick guesses. Living it up in his little pop up camper in the meantime. That’s what he does for a living too—renovations, flipping houses, that kind of stuff. 

“So you planning on moving here?” Patrick asks after he’s devoured half his plate. 

Jonny shakes his head, shoves some pancakes in his mouth, chews, then, “Don’t think so. Though I’d like to get a work permit or visa or something, there’s good work I could do here. Maybe stay during the season.”

“So you’re going back to Canada?”

“Got to. Gotta keep that sweet-sweet free healthcare. Don’t worry,” he adds quickly. “Jess knows.”

Patrick chews slower. “But you guys are like, together, right?”

“We’re taking it as the summer goes, but yes. We’ll figure it out. It’s not _that_ far.”

Granted, Patrick’s _really_ not the expert on relationships, but it seems to him—seems that if they’ve already talked about how to make this thing last as a cross-country thing, after only a month or so together, it’s more than just taking it as the summer goes. Seems to him it’s serious, or wants to be serious. 

He hums around his second piece of fish, and realizes that his foot is still against Jonny’s. He slides it back under his seat. 

*

He jerks off to thoughts of Jonny for the first time that same morning.

*

The house is still asleep when he drives back. He looks up at it from the seat of his car, his hands still clutching the wheel, then fingers drumming, thinking it’s the same, it’s the same house, practically all his life. It feels a little like coming back to the scene of the crime, but not completely in an uncomfortable way.

He goes around the back to get in through the kitchen door, not surprised to see his mom there in her bathrobe, hair piled up on her head as she chops vegetables for what he assumes is an omelette while coffee brews behind her. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” she whispers, watches him take off his shoes, and he places them where they go before she can tell him to. 

Patrick nods, kisses her quick on the cheek. “Already eaten,” he says. “Gonna shower and go back to bed.”

She places her hand on his cheek, gives him a gentle pat, says, “Good idea. You look like you need it,” with a little grin that makes her suddenly look ten years younger, smooths out over her face, and it’s only then he realizes how much older she is. He just saw her last Christmas, it shouldn’t be such a shock to his system but it is, like being told a favorite childhood film is now twenty years old. 

He grimaces at her, makes her laugh, and steals a piece of bell pepper off the board before making his escape.

He’s always been a shower type of guy when it comes to getting off alone, finds it comfortable with no cleaning necessary, and, in a house full of sisters, easy to hide the sounds of fucking his own fist. Easy to find excuses to take more than one a day—to purposefully get sweaty or dirty, pretend he needed to clean out the sea salt from his hair, anything. Teen libido high and, he’s sure, the water bill too.

It’s still his favorite place to do it. Hand down between his legs without too much of a thought until he’s half hard in his fist and heat echoing the water temperature floods his core, sends his dick twitching in his loose grasp. He presses a hand to the wall, hangs his head low under the jet and strokes himself slow, fingertips along his length at first, then a palm at the head.

He doesn’t mean to think of Jonny, but it’s what comes to mind first and he doesn’t question it—he’s hot, the last hot thing Patrick saw, fresh in his memory, and so are the things he thought about him, resurfacing with the clarity of a gasp after being underwater. Jonny and his smooth, tanned skin and the stretch of his shorts around his thighs, his ass.

Jonny on his knees right in this shower, water flattening his hair to his skull, running down his face, eyes up, meeting Patrick’s as he slips his dick into his mouth and fucks it nice and slow, comes over it. Comes over the bottom of the shower and watches the water wash his jizz down the drain while he catches his breath, flicks his balls lightly for a last spurt, one, he thinks, that Jonny could catch across the chin, wipe with the back or his wrist before licking it. 

*

He wakes up at one in the afternoon, achy in his muscles like he’s been working out. He does some stretches in the middle of his room and stops when he bangs his elbow on his mom’s bike’s handlebar. It makes him feel suddenly too big for this space, this room with his name still on the little wooden sign dangling from a nail on the door, there in some iteration or another since he was five. He gives the bike a little kick because he can and no one’s here to see him do it. 

No one seems to be around, in fact. Erica has her own place and, unless she’s got the day off, is unlikely to be here. Jess and Jackie are also probably at work, as is his dad, and while his mom might be at home, it’s as likely she’s off on errands, visiting a friend, doing some community work, some volunteering. He didn’t ask.

It’s been a while since he’s had to think about those things—to inquire about anything else other than his shift at work and who’s available for a fuck, or if he has to pick up, or if he cares to, if his roommates will be around or if it’s better to fuck the dude at his place, in his car. Now anyone willing to suck his dick is a whole width of a country away, and, anyway, he deleted half of his contacts while on the plane.

The house is quiet. Settled. Chaotic in a familiar way even though he can pick out all the little things that have changed since he left: new couch, new flatscreen TV mounted on the wall, the buttery yellow of his childhood kitchen painted over with white, new handles on the cabinets. Little stuff. Even things he’s seen on his visits hit differently now. He walks down the hallway to the laundry room to grab a towel and sees himself doing the same but at five, ten, fifteen years old. Same bones, same blood. Different outfittings.

He inhales sharply when he lets the cupboard’s door over the washer clack close, loud in the silence. Hisses between his bared teeth, nose scrunched up in anticipation of his mom calling to please stop slamming doors, Patrick.

He needs to find his own place soon.

Any new place he can afford won’t have a sweet fucking pool, though. 

His parents had it dug when Patrick was twelve, in place of the small above ground one that came with the house, and it quickly became Patrick’s favorite thing in the summer. All the cool freshness of water, none of the pesky tourists and sand in his buttcrack. Paradise.

He opens the screen door, takes one step and stops, stradling the doorway.

There’s a man by the pool. A man lounging on his front on one of their chairs. A man with a mountain of an ass that, even though he’s only seen it once, Patrick thinks he could pick out of a line up—that one officer, yes completely sure, absolutely no mistake. 

The display is fucking obscene.

Jonny’s head is pillowed on his arm, turned away from Patrick, biceps thick, skin evenly golden except for where his swimsuit is being pulled down a little and there’s a thin stripe of whiter skin along the waistband. The muscles on his back work as he shifts a little but it’s the dip there, at the base of his spine, that snatch Patrick’s eyes. The dip and the steep climb that follows, like the Mount Everest of asses, fabric so tight over it, even from this distance Patrick can see where it's caught between his cheeks. If this were a porno, Patrick would walk over, cover Jonny with his body, and rub himself off in there, splatter it over the smooth expanse of his back.

Jonny shifts, turns his head Patrick’s way, forces him to fully step out. One fluid move, like he never stopped in the middle of it to ogle his sister’s boyfriend to begin with, warm between the legs, but not thick with it, thankfully.

Does he know any gay man in this fucking town, he wonders as he walks over, offers Jonny a little wave.

“Hey,” he says, sitting on the foot of the lounge chair in front of Jonny, towel casually in his lap. This is a lot in one day for one jetlagged, horny body. 

“Hey again,” Jonny says, voice lazy and warm, like it’s been baked as much as his skin by the sun. He sets his chin on his fist to look at Patrick. Even from this angle, Patrick can see the high curve of his ass in his field of vision, hyper-conscious that it’ll be extremely obvious if he dares to even glance in its direction. Hyper-conscious too that he’s staring to compensate, so he blinks and looks to the hedge for the same amount of time, the water, his toes, before coming back to Jonny.

“Jess just left,” he says, doing that paying-attention thing—innocent information or reminder, Patrick can’t decide. 

“I figured.” Patrick flexes his hands a couple times, catches Jonny’s gaze with the movement. “You hanging out?”

“Just for a bit. Gotta get back to work.”

The sun is high, too hot over Patrick’s pasty white skin. He came out without a shirt on, with a plan to hangout in the shaded part of the pool. He’s not as pale as he used to be—five years in California will do that to anyone—but feels like a fucking ghost so close to Jonny’s tan. He kinda wants to spread his hand in the middle of his back to see the contrast, feel how hot it is, soaked up in sunlight, innocent-like.

“At your cottage?” Maybe a second too late.

Jonny hums an agreement. Gets his elbows under him, and then his knees, lifts up with his ass first, back arching for a moment like he’s begging to be taken from behind, in a move Patrick would think deliberate if he didn’t know any better. Then he’s on all fours for a second and up the next, standing tall while Patrick stays seated, offering a good excuse to let his eyes travel up, another deliberate squint to them like the sun’s too bright. He even brings a hand up to his forehead for good measure.

Jonny glances at him from the corner of his eye and then dips his chin, turns his head with a pinched tremor to his mouth, a bitten off smile. He’s cute too, dammit. 

Patrick leans back on his hands, stretches his legs in front of him, towel still protecting him from potential indignities. “Leaving already?”

“I better,” Jonny says. “Might not wanna move if I stay longer.” He gives a little self-mocking high laugh that hits Patrick just right in the stomach, the swoop of a car going fast over the crest of a hill.

“Shame.” Patrick drops on his back, arm thrown over his eyes. “Guess I’ll have to enjoy all this nice sun, nice pool, by myself.” He rubs his stomach with his other hand, scratches at the hairs below his belly button with blunted nails, not really thinking about it until he is and doesn’t stop, slides his hand again and makes sure part of it gets caught under his waistband. Let Jonny look, or not, it’s no skin off his nose.

The silence stretches long enough that he’s about to check if Jonny’s still there when he hears, “Yeah, drywall waits for no one.”

Patrick snorts. “Have fun, man,” he says, waves, and listens to Jonny’s steps in the grass. Takes a peek at his ass when he knows it’s safe. 

* 

Patrick doesn’t like mess. Has always been neat in a way that made his mom remark on it both pleased and confused, perplexed that this isn’t what she’s ever been told about teenage boys. He’s not obsessive about it, just likes his stuff folded away, his shoes lined up, the dishes washed, the bed made even if sometimes it’s just him throwing his sheets back up—he’s not squaring any corners. In life too, he likes to know where he’s going, what he needs to do to get there, clear instructions even if he has to figure it out himself. Has never minded practice if it was something he’s interested in. And then relationships: clear rules when he fucks around, simple, uncomplicated affairs that make sense, avoids emotional messes as much as possible, just like he avoids it in his room, his apartment. 

Things got away from him for a while. 

It started with his heart, his head, his dick and then things fell down one after the other like dominos, trying to catch up until he was offered a lifeline and he took it. Back now on ground he knows, with clear goals, clear steps. Cleaning up his life.

So this, too, he keeps simple. A hand on his dick and a finger in his ass and a picture in his mind of his sister’s boyfriend—off-limits, probably straight, hot enough, cute enough to have fun with in his head and no worries in sight. Nothing wrong with looking, thinking. No possible complications here. 

*

He’s a fucking idiot.

*

And he still needs to get laid. 

Jerking off feels great, sitting on a dick feels better. He just needs a no-strings one-night type of deal—skin under his lips, a hand on his body that isn’t his own. 

Not in his fucking hometown though. Coming out to his family is definitely in the cards, but not just yet, and he wants to be in control of that, choose his time. Not have it reach his mom before he’s ready because he picked up a dude on grindr that remembers him from high school and he mentions it to his other bro who tells it to his sister who tells it to her mom who volunteers at the hospital with Donna Kane and oh Donna you never told us that Patrick was gay, I have a nephew who’s single looking for a date to his ex’s wedding and you know how these people are about weddings, amiright? 

So.

So he drives one—no, two—towns over and finds a bar and a guy and gets his dick sucked nice in the bathroom before deciding it was good enough to go back to the dude’s place for some assplay. 

The guy—Steve—is a satisfying ache inside him. Lets Patrick ride him. Lets him use his body to get himself off, to smooth out the sharp edge of his own thirst, chase that elusive point where he won’t feel like he needs more, filled up and emptied out and good. 

He’s so chill about it afterwards, Patrick considers asking for his number—easier to have a few booty calls in his phone, he knows, than to have to pull every other night. He’s already opening his contacts, thumbs at the ready—such a habit—when he stops, turns the screen off and puts it back down beside him, acts like he was just checking his texts, after which he says, “Thanks, man,” as he puts his socks back on, sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed, ready to leave.

“No, man,” Steve replies, still sprawled under the covers with his back against the headboard, and gestures to his whole body, reaches out with a fist. “Thank _you_.”

Patrick snorts a little laugh and fistbumps him.

It’s so late he’s practically the only person on the road, all hills and turns along the coast with the sea on his right, windows open and the car smells like salt and water, like fish and summer nights, balmy from the day, threaded cold with ocean wind. A deep breath of it as the radio plays soft rock music, barely audible under the rushing of air in his ears and he flies along, sky clear and bright, dick happy, ass aching good, and— 

His back left tire bursts. 

“Shit!” He swerves, presses on the brakes, comes to a slow, uneventful stop on the shoulder. “Fuck.”

He’s alone on a long stretch of road, barely any light, the night quiet except for the chirps of insects, the wind in the grass, the distant sound of waves carried on the breeze, and the radio.

He gets the spare tire out of the trunk, looks for the jack and, “Fuuuuuck,” remembers his dad telling him it was missing and that he’d need to buy a new one. Which he didn’t do. 

Sitting on the edge of his open trunk, he turns his phone in his hands thinking through his options. He doesn’t want to call his parents, knows Erica has work early tomorrow and that Jackie’s gone camping with friends. That leaves Jess. He bites his lips, tries to remember if she’s mentioned her schedule to him and decides he’s gonna text her and if she doesn’t reply in five minutes, he’s just gonna call a tow truck. 

Instead, she calls him.

“Hey, you okay?” she says right away, almost a whisper.

“Yeah,” he says, has to force himself not to match her tone. Who is he gonna bother? The crickets? “Got a flat tire and no jack for the spare.”

“Why are you out so late?” she asks, and Patrick lets the pregnant pause that follows speak for him. She laughs, more breath in his ear than sound. “Nevermind, I don’t wanna know. Where are you?”

Patrick tells her, and he’s about to hang up when he hears a low voice at the end of the line. It’s rough and sleepy even though he can’t make out the words. “It’s my brother,” Jess says to someone that isn’t him.

“Is he okay?” he now hears. Jonny. Of course it’s Jonny. Him and Jess are probably in his little camper, and he suddenly feels weird about this, hot in his stomach and in his throat.

“Jess, I—”

“Will be there soon,” Jess replies back to him, and then ends the call. 

He stares at his phone until the screen goes dark on its own and thinks of texting her to forget about it, that he’ll call a tow truck, it’s fine. Used to be a time where he wouldn’t have hesitated one second, would have taken it for granted because they wouldn’t have hesitated with him either, knowing he’d be there, and now it’s been five years and it doesn’t feel the same anymore. 

He bites at his nails, spits them out, opens the driver’s door and sits there, sideways with his feet flat in the gravel and the radio still playing—some kind of late night love songs while he checks his emails (not one from California except for his old boss letting him know his last paycheck has been deposited), and then instagram. 

He’s started a systematic clean up of his follows when he gets another text from Jess:

_Jonny’s on his way._

He frowns. Types: _What do you mean?_ , and waits but no reply comes through.

Ten minutes later and lights appear in the distance. They slow down as they come close, enough for Patrick to see Jonny behind the wheel of a dark pick up truck as he drives past with a little wave, and then does a 3-point turn to park behind Patrick’s car. 

“Hey,” he says when he’s opened the door, slammed it shut, hair rumpled and a ratty thin white shirt on that Patrick assumes he goes to bed in, features still composed into sleepiness. He’s adorable and extremely attractive all at once, and immediately it’s like a match to kindle and a strong blow over the flames. Like he wasn’t fucking a dude less than an hour ago. 

Sorry, Steve.

“Sorry for waking you up,” Patrick says as Jonny grabs a jack from the box of his truck. “Thought Jess would come.”

“She was gonna, but I offered. She’s having brunch with friends in the morning and I was gonna drive her early then, so I figured.” He shrugs. “Dropped her at your parents’ and came here. My schedule’s flexible.”

Patrick shifts on the balls of his feet, forward on his toes, says, “Thanks, man. You really didn’t have to,” and is met with a dismissive wave of the hand, and, 

“No worries. Family, eh?” 

That word lands _hilariously_ weird considering Patrick’s fantasies of the past few days, and a little high laugh bubbles inside his throat, something telling he manages to swallow just in time, replies, “Yeah, I guess,” with as much chill as he can muster. 

Jonny smiles at him, quick and almost boyish, the headlights of his truck bright on the side of his face, casting the other half in deep, blue shadows so it’s hard to read his expression, but not to miss that he’s staring. And Patrick shifts again, shoves his hands in his pockets, presses them forward to stretch his shorts out, irrationally certain he’s about to pop a boner.

He hasn’t showered, he’s still tacky, can feel it when he squeezes his ass. It’d be easy for Jonny to slip in there and fuck him against his car. He’s all soft-looking and rumpled but Patrick thinks he could give it hard if he was asked to. There’s no hiding all those muscles, the span of those hands, the strength in those thick thighs of his. 

Patrick hopes it’s not showing on his face while he stares back, both of them caught in the moment longer than is necessary, and he’s about to ask ‘what?’, ask _something_ , when Jonny blinks and looks away, down, turns the jack in his hands and crouches beside Patrick’s flat wheel and gets busy.

“Had a good night?” he asks eventually, shoulders low so he can look under the car and place the jack in the right spot, ass high up like that one yoga post Patrick doesn’t know the name of. Jesus Christ. Jonny _must_ be straight for not thinking about what this looks like.

“Huh?”

Jonny straightens up, gives him a quick glance, moves his fingers towards his neck with a little grin, and Patrick turns around, checks in the side mirror to see a hickey close to his collarbone, right at the edge of his shirt.

“Shit.”

Jonny huffs an amused little sound and gets started on loosening the lug nuts.

“I can do that,” Patrick says, already too late in the process but crouching beside him all the same. “Really, you should go back to bed, I got it.”

“It’s all good. Better light with my truck there anyway.” 

Their knees almost touch. The smell of an evening shower wafts at him with the breeze, soap and something vaguely fruity, and there’s dark stubble over Jonny’s cheeks where he was clean shaven last time Patrick saw him. He doesn’t realize he’s staring until he’s tracing the line of Jonny’s jaw back to his eyes and finds them already fixed on him.

“A really good night,” Jonny says, so low it sounds almost more to himself, and when Patrick frowns, confused, he moves his hand to brush another spot on Patrick’s neck with a fingertip. Lingers there, barely a touch, but Patrick feels it in all of his nerve endings, steadies himself with a hand against the car.

“You should see the other guy,” he says with less levity than he was intending, and not thinking, just wanting to fill the silence.

Old, familiar panic hits his gut as soon as he’s said it, but Jonny doesn’t react, or doesn’t pick up on the literal admission Patrick’s just made, only huffs and smiles, kicked out of whatever thoughts he’d been having, the moment, hand dropping and grabbing the wrench again. 

Patrick offers to help, but Jonny insists on doing it himself, tells him to just relax, so Patrick does. Gets up and leans on the car with his shoulder, watches Jonny work in silence. 

He used to do that a lot back in the day, once past the denial, but not brave enough yet to act on what he wanted. Guys at the gym, guys playing volleyball shirtless on the beach, guys grinding on each other at the club. Porn. He’d watch and he’d think—about what he wanted, what he’d do if he could make himself do it, how it’d feel—and jerked off to it constantly. It felt safe. Felt like he could still take it back. Then, he got more okay with it, started acting on it. All the time. First thinking he’d just take it out of his system, then accepting that it wasn’t gonna go away. It got really good. It got really wild—Patrick always best at the grinding if he liked something enough to dedicate himself to it, keep at it until he’s satisfied. 

It doesn’t feel like regression to find himself back in that early stage, it’s just kinda nice, soothing. He’s not that guy anymore, angry and scared and self-hating, but it’s a space he knows, a bit of safe stillness that’s welcomed. 

And Jonathan Toews is good to look at. 

Nothing can come of it so it’s okay for Patrick to think about rubbing one out right in his car. To imagine himself in the front seat, watching Jonny work in the side mirror and fucking his fist to the shift of muscles along his arms, the sheen of sweat over his neck, his brow. 

When he’s done and the wheel’s back on the ground, Jonny falls on his ass with a loud groan, so porn-like to Patrick’s ears it’s almost funny if not for the fact that it has that exact effect on him, a single interested jump of his dick that Jonny misses, thankfully, as he leans on his hands and tips his head back towards the sky, eyes closed. The long line of his neck is a display impossible to look away from, his mouth parted, his breathing a little heavy. In all this time not one car has passed them, it’d be easy for Patrick to straddle his body, feed him his cock, fuck his mouth. 

The night’s a bit sticky, even with the breeze, but Jonny’s shirt clings to his chest with sweat, the intense sheen over his forehead, hair stuck to his face like it’s much worse than it is. 

“Dude,” Patrick starts, cutting up the silence. It lands so strange between them after so long without talking, though, that he stops there, doesn’t know what he was gonna say anymore. 

Jonny must understand because he grimaces, says, “I know,” big hand pulling at the front of his shirt and flapping it a few times. “I’ve got sweaty genes.”

“My condolences,” Patrick says, and by that he means that it’s hot.

“Thank you.” He’s so dry, it makes Patrick smile, then laugh, then choke it short when he takes off his shirt in one move over his head.

“Got a spare in my gym bag, if you need one.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

He gets a bag from his truck, takes out a towel and wipes his chest, his armpits. Puts a new shirt on, and Patrick has to turn away, concern himself with the jack and wrench, put them back in their case.

“I owe you one,” he says when Jonny joins him, both of them leaning against the car and facing the road, shoulders close enough to brush. 

“Don’t mention it.”

They lapse into silence again, comfortable, Jonny a warm body beside his that he has to fight against himself not to press into, just let himself sag a little, tired suddenly and wanting to sleep, wanting a bed. 

“So,” he says instead, “How much do you lift, bro.”

Jonny’s laugh is a burst of sound into the otherwise quiet night and Patrick feels his own smile in the hinge of his jaw.

“Oh, you noticed, eh?” He bumps Patrick’s shoulder, hand coming up to rub at one pec. 

“I have eyes,” Patrick replies.

“Yeah? Well, I got eyes, too.”

“Haven’t been since I came back.”

“I like the one on Spencer. It’s new. Their prices are decent and they do monthly payments which works great for me.”

“Might check it out.”

“You should. Could use a gym buddy.”

Patrick’s heart beats fast, excited or like it wants to run away, impossible to tell, and he looks up. The sky is clear, the stars bright, the moon high. He’s half thinking about turning to the side, a simple 1-80 to press Jonny between his body and the car, and get a feel of that gym workout against his own, get the good feel he knows he can. 

No one would know.

*

In the end, he just thanks Jonny for his help, climbs back into his car and drives back to his parents’. Sneaks back inside like he's sixteen again. Bangs his toe against the stationary bike and muffles a curse into his fist. 

He’s too tired to jerk off. Falls asleep with his half hard dick in his hand.

*

(It’s a bit of a fascination)

*

Jonny’s around all the time.

*

That’s probably a wild exaggeration. He can’t be—he works, _Jess_ works, and there’s no reason for him to be at the Kanes' when Jess isn’t there. But Patrick turns a corner and there he is, leaning against the kitchen counter in a tank top and board shorts, laughing with his sister. 

Or—he’s about to leave the house and Jonny’s just turning into the driveway in his truck, stepping out of it, and it’s obvious he’s just come from the cottage, sweaty and dirty and sizzling hot. So Patrick has to go back inside, has to take the edge off before heading back out again. Take it off while Jonny’s in the shower in their guest bathroom two doors down from his room. Take it off thinking about going there, slipping in, doing him from behind against the wet tiles.

Or—again in the backyard and Jonny’s there in his tight swim trunks, lounging or swimming, fueling Patrick’s spank bank for another day at least.

Or—in his bedroom at night while everyone is asleep, and he’s humping his mattress like he’s 15 again thinking about pussy, except now he’s thinking about Jonny’s ass and how tight it would be around his cock because Jonny was over for dinner today and that’s all it took. And he laughs in his pillow after, wet and muffled and exhausted, wonders how he’s gonna sneak-wash his sheets without his mom knowing.

Or— 

Or— 

Or— 

It sinks into his skin, a weirdly perfect one-sided summer romance, distracting and bright, easy and uncomplicated. A game he’s only playing in his own mind with this man at the center. No one to bitch at him for only wanting sex, for not committing, for fucking a dude already in a relationship, for sucking a dick and then being pushed away, being called words he doesn’t care to repeat and not taking it lying down. 

*

(A bit of a preoccupation.) 

*

“Your turn, Jonny,” Jackie says from her sprawl on the living room’s floor.

The rain’s still pouring outside, has been all day. And in a rare moment of synchronicity, all of his sisters are off work, so it’s the five of them now, playing Kane Rules Trivial Pursuit with an outdated board, no questions past 1986. 

Jonny, sitting on the edge of the footstool, knees wide apart, leans in between them to grab the dice and shake them in his hand, catches Patrick’s eye as he does. 

Patrick smiles, lazy-like. Stretches on the couch, shirtless and looking good, he knows. Can imagine the fuck they could have, quiet as they can in the guest bedroom, if Jonny was into that sort of thing. And he flips on his stomach with that thought in his mind, something to make the move hot in his limbs. He grabs a card when Jonny lands on pink, pops his ass out just a little, just enough to pretend he’s not really trying. 

Kane Rules dictate that if a player doesn’t know the answer to a question, the player _must_ make one up, see how close they can get and then defend it in relation to the real answer so that the committee (the other players with a vested interest in not letting them win) decides if it’s worth a wedge. 

Jonny _sucks_ at it.

“No offense, Jonathan,” Erica helpfully voices what they’re all thinking. “But you suck at this.”

“You’re _terrible_ ,” Jackie adds, shakes her head in a hyperbolic disappointed way. 

Jonny’s face is pinched, clearly annoyed and too serious, but twitched like he’s trying to hide it. It’s hilarious. And hot? It’s hot. His nipples are hard and dark, and Patrick takes advantage of his position to take his fill of that chest, grind his dick once into the couch. Jonny glances his way like he caught the movement from the corner of his eyes, right at Patrick’s ass and then his face. A face Patrick keeps absolutely straight (hah!) while he moves a leg, flips on his side once more like this was always his intention. 

From her position on the floor by his legs, Jess pats Jonny’s knee, but doesn’t defend him, and Patrick smiles to himself. He didn’t teach his sisters to be lenient to losers. 

“You have weird rules,” Jonny says, throws down the card with the right answer after snatching it out of Patrick’s hand. 

“Maybe you’re just boring,” Patrick says, gives him a wide, innocent smile and thinks if it was just the two of them, Jonny would give him the finger. His eyes narrow briefly and it makes Patrick’s stomach flip a little, warm and weird, and he presses a hand to it to stop the feeling. 

It keeps on raining. The kind of rain that makes it seem like it’ll never stop. 

After Trivial Pursuit, they take a break and Patrick heads to the bathroom for a piss (and a quickie) while Erica grabs more snacks and Jackie picks a new game.

He bumps into Jonny on his way out.

They’re both sticky, the air muggy in the house, and the brief touch lingers on his skin. The hallway is dark and grey with no light on, hushed with only the sound of the rain after their mumbled apologies, and Patrick wonders how long Jonny’s been waiting there by the door, what he might have heard. 

“Sorry,” Jonny says again, but doesn’t move away, stays close enough Patrick has to tip his chin up to talk to his face and not his throat. 

“Sorry about the game, man.” His whole body clenches hot inside and he has to shove his hands into his pockets to stop himself from skimming his fingers along Jonny’s stomach. Leans back against the doorway and offers himself a couple inches of extra space. “It was an ugly loss.”

“They were ugly rules.” 

Patrick hums, nods. “Fair. But that’s how we roll. Gotta be ready for some hard plays with us Kanes. We show no mercy.”

“That so?” Jonny’s eyes roam over Patrick’s face, dip quick to his chest and back up. 

The empty space between them is a physical press over Patrick’s chest, makes it feel like his lungs have been crammed into his throat. He sees things like close-ups in a movie—all slow-motion and in high-definition: the pretty pink spread over Jonny’s skin, splotchy at his shoulders, the little beads of sweat on his upper lip, the quick swipe of his tongue behind his lower lip, the long exhale through his nose, the lazy flutter of his eyelashes

“I’ll try to remember that,” he says, almost a whisper, and Patrick watches his mouth form each word, watches the wet shine over his lips from the dull grey light. He swallows hard, closes his fists in his pockets. 

“You gotta,” he says, matches Jonny’s tone like they’re sharing a secret, then adds, “if you’re gonna stick around.”

Jonny blinks and he doesn’t move away but he might as well have, somehow, all heaviness in the air gone, something shifted for no reason Patrick can pinpoint. The pressure snapping so suddenly Patrick might wonder if it was there at all except for how breathless he feels.

“Can I take a piss before we tackle Life?” Jonny says with a slight eyebrow raised, and no discernible change in tone, acting like Patrick was in his way this whole time.

“Sure, bud,” he answers, breezy as he can, and moves sideways. Is still there when the door closes and light spills from underneath it. Watches the shadow of Jonny’s feet as he stands by the door for a long time, then moves away. 

*

“He’s a keeper,” Erica says that night, as they watch Jonny and Jess get into his truck from the front stoop. 

Patrick says nothing.

*

(A bit of an affliction.)

*

When he first told his parents he was coming home for good, he said he’d like to take a few weeks to himself before starting work. His idea was that, outside of spending more time with his family, he’d take the opportunity to get back into the rhythm of his town, re-familiarize himself, reconnect with people, just generally get his shit together so he can start over on the right foot.

He has done absolutely none of that.

Mostly, he’s stayed home by the pool and hung out with his sisters and has spent a non-negligible amount of time with his hand on his dick.

It’s been almost three weeks now and he’s… bored. And he thinks maybe it’s time to get on with his other plans, but the thought of hitting up one of his old buddies from before he left (suddenly and without much of a goodbye or contact in between) doesn’t sit well in his stomach. Maybe another day. 

None of his sisters are around, so he gets into his car and drives to Jonny’s campground. 

His truck is there so Patrick assumes he is too. He knocks lightly because it’s still early, but Jonny opens the door almost immediately, dressed in paint splattered jeans and an old Our Lady Peace t-shirt with a hole on the shoulder. 

“Hey,” he says, mouth cracking into a sleepy but bright smile when he sees Patrick. “What’s up?”

“Our Lady Peace? Really?”

“What? Oh.” He looks down at his shirt, then narrows his eyes, expression going from sweet to serious so fast, Patrick has to pinch his lips together not to laugh. “They’re a _great_ Canadian band.”

“If you say so…”

“They are.”

“Maybe you have to be Canadian, because—” 

“ _What’s up, Patrick?_ ” 

He can’t help it anymore, he bursts into laughter, holds up his hands in surrender. “I believe you, I believe you, man. Sorry for not calling but”—he shakes his phone—“I don’t have your number.”

Jonny glares at him for an extra moment, and Patrick doesn’t even feel guilty, just smiles wider at him and bounces onto his heels.

“No worries,” Jonny says, face smoothing out back into sweetness. And Patrick probably is the first person he’s talked to this morning because he can hear a bit of a French accent there, now, in the thicker words. “Everything alright?”

“Just bored out of my mind.” Patrick shrugs, laughs again, at himself this time. “Was gonna go to this small beach most tourists don’t know about. It’s usually quiet, pretty nice. Thought you might like—I don’t know—But I see you’re probably off to work.”

“I am,” Jonny says, and Patrick’s heart sinks a little, unexpected, until Jonny adds quickly, “But I’m free this afternoon.”

“Yeah?” 

“Need some pipes changed but the guy can only come tomorrow. I could do a bunch of other stuff, but I’m—Anyway, I have time.”

“Cool.”

“Cool,” Jonny repeats, dry, then blows a sigh through his nose. “Give me your phone. I’ll text you when I’m done.”

Patrick drives back home and loses count of the number of times he checks his phone until it finally pings.

*

“Where are you going?” his mother asks him when he runs past her and into the kitchen to grab his shoes from the back porch. 

“Taking Jonny to the cove beach.”

His mom’s eyebrows rise a little but she smiles something motherly that only gets a little under Patrick’s skin because he’s been at the end of it so many times. “He’s a good boy. I’m glad you get along. I have a feeling we’ll see him around for a long time.”

“They've been together for less than two months, mom,” he says, hops on one foot and then the other to put his sneakers on. ‘Plus, he’s going back to Canada at one point, you know.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Patrick grabs the bag he’d packed the moment he got home this morning and kisses her on the cheek. “See you later.”

He’s out the door just as Jonny’s pulling in. He throws his bag in the bed of the truck, climbs into the passenger seat, and is hit with a wall of sound made of Our Lady Peace.

Patrick stares at the radio, then at Jonny, affronted, but is only met with very badly feigned innocence, his noise of disbelief swallowed up when Jonny reaches out to up the volume. 

What a douchebag.

Patrick is delighted.

Eventually Jonny has to turn the volume down to hear Patrick’s directions, but throws a smug little look Patrick’s way before he does, like he’s saying his point was well made.

“Turn over here,” Patrick says instead of acknowledging, guiding him through a part of town tourists rarely go except to stay in an occasional B&B. “Jess hasn’t taken you there yet?”

“She’s mentioned it, just never happened. So only locals know about it?”

Patrick looks out the window. “Mostly, yeah. It’s small and rocky but it’s quiet.”

They park by the side of the road and then take a path in between two properties, follow it down to the coast, to a steep decline along the cliffside. From there, the beach is practically invisible, but the ocean stretches out, darker below in the cove and then a sharper blue up to the horizon. The wind whips at them, salty-brisk, and Patrick turns to Jonny just in time to see him close his eyes, tip his face into it, chin high, throat long, a sort of bliss spread across him that has Patrick’s heart kicking in his ribcage.

The beach is nestled in between tall rock walls, and they take the winding path down to the sand, not as fine as the other beaches but enough to walk barefoot all the same. The sun is high, but the air fresh, and the sky is full of large fluffy clouds, the kind that look fake, painted. Only one group is there beside them, clustered by one end, so they walk in the opposite direction, right to the other end. It feels like they’re alone—rocks behind and beside them, rocks he used to climb with his sisters when they were all younger, looking for tidepools. The tide is high, the waves close and rushing and loud.

They dig a hole for the parasol and settle down in the shade.

He shows off. He knows he does. Takes off his shirt by grabbing the back and pulling it over his head, flexes a little as he does, satisfied and a hot clench in his core when he catches Jonny looking.

“Doesn’t look like you’ve missed the gym much,” he says with the tone of someone who was only checking things out of a professional interest. 

Patrick shrugs, pulls his shoulders and elbows back in a stretch, feels his abs harden. “Been doing some weight free stuff at home.”

Jonny nods like he’s satisfied with that answer, takes off his shirt in turn, and Patrick traces the line of his waistband with his eyes where it’s low on his hips, doesn’t bother making it subtle because fair’s fair. He’s seen countless dudes with similar bodies in California, he’s fucked a few—more than a few— but he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted one as much as he wants Jonny’s right now, unattainable as he is and right in Patrick’s reach.

They both decide to settle down instead of swimming, Patrick in a chair, Jonny on a towel beside him. They’ve got a small cooler and Patrick kicks it open, grabs a couple beers, and hands one over. 

“This is great,” Jonny says once they’ve settled themselves.

With Jonny’s eyes closed, Patrick lingers on his skin, skims down his spine and traces the rise of his ass, then checks down the beach for the other group. They’re far enough Patrick could cover Jonny’s body with his own, tug his swimsuit below his asscheeks and rub his dick warm into the crease there without them knowing, seeing, any kind of noise they’d make would be swallowed by the waves.

He wonders if Jonny is the type to get off on that kind of stuff. On possibly being caught or being watched.

He’s forgotten about the couple fading red marks along his ribs, courtesy of another hookup, until Jonny says, “You like it?” soft, almost muffled in his bicep and not at all what he should ask, tip of his head and meaningful look at the spot when Patrick frowns, confused. His face is hard to read, mostly shadows from his arm and his hat and the parasol, but eyes visibly dark and intent.

Patrick rubs a flat hand over his side, keeps the sweep going over his stomach before dropping it into the sand. “I like that they like it,” he replies, too honest, the day too bright for this kind of confession, for the kind of bros they’re not.

The pumping of his heart is louder in his ears than even the waves, and he curls his toes hard into the sand to keep his legs from jiggling, betraying the jittery zings of nerves in his limbs.

Jonny nods, slow and thoughtful, says, “I get that,” then turns his head, closes his eyes again. 

What do you like, Patrick wants to ask, wills himself to not reach out, to not brush Jonny’s shoulder with his fingertips and ask him, demand some kind of answer that would explain the way Patrick can’t rid himself of the thought of him. Instead, he sinks in his chair until his nape hits the back of it, flips his hat over his face, crosses his legs at the ankles, and thinks of nothing at all.

First, all is bright red. And then he removes his hat and the sun blinds him. The tide has receded, and Jonny is coming back up the beach, soaked, swimsuit clinging like it’s been shrink-wrapped over his thighs, his cock, easy to see an instant before he tugs at the fabric at the front and ruins the effect.

“How’s the water?” Patrick asks to distract himself from his own dick, the interested twitch in his balls. Waterdrops slide down between Jonny’s pecs to his abs, into his belly button, and he’d taste like salt and sunshine, like summer days, like hot sex. Patrick sits back straight and reaches for another beer.

“Fucking amazing,” Jonny replies, grabs a second towel to dry himself, shakes it vigorously over his hair and resurfaces with a bad case of bed head.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

They seem to be mostly alone on the beach now, or close to it, the other group gone, and Patrick thinks he can spot a figure by the shoreline further down but that’s it. It’ll fill again for a few hours once people get off work, but for now… this is why Patrick loves this place.

Jonny must think the same thing because he digs in his bag, finds a little metal box and shakes it, opens it to show one joint and a lighter. 

“Will you bitch if I smoke this?”

Patrick takes off his hat, drags a hand through his hair and places it back, runs his tongue over his gums. “Only if you don’t share,” he says.

They sit side by side on Patrick’s towel in the space between his chair and the rocks, like that extra foot and the cheap parasol are gonna hide the smell. Patrick’s careful to leave a couple inches between them, but he might as well not bother he’s so aware of his proximity he feels it like a touch.

Jonny lights up, hand cupped over to protect it from the wind, takes a long drag. Holds it, and passes the blunt to Patrick as he’s tasting the smoke. Patrick watches it leave his nose as he takes in his own.

Jonny has a mole behind his right ear. Patrick could easily slant his head, lean in and kiss it, mouth down Jonny’s neck, push him into the sand. The desire sits thick in his gut, not the hot zings of before, but low and heavy, rolling there like the smoke in his mouth as Jonny takes another hit and holds it in his lungs, looks sideways at Patrick, says, “You want it?” breathy and aspired from his throat. 

It takes a second for Patrick to catch on and when he does, he freezes in place, muscles clenched tight with lust, eyes going wet with it, and he’s already leaning in when he says, “Yeah,” already angling his head sideways like he’s about to kiss him.

He could kiss him.

Jonny twists to face him, cups Patrick’s knee with a hand at the same time Patrick covers his shoulder with his own. It takes them two seconds to situate themselves but it feels longer, feels like all of it is stretching out, stretching tight—an elastic just before the snap. And Jonny is so close Patrick can see the rich brown of his eyes, not black at all, until he’s too close and he can’t anymore, only the side of his nose faintly freckled. 

He doesn’t dare move his lips, doesn’t dare lick them, because if he did he'd be touching Jonny’s. It hurts to keep this still. 

He inhales.

Breathes it in until there’s no smoke to breathe in and he lingers anyway, not done, Jonny only blowing air and Patrick keeps inhaling it until his lungs are screaming. His skin prickles with heat, a drop of sweat slides along his spine, and he realizes Jonny’s fingertips have moved from his knee to his jaw only when the soft pressure of them disappears. The awareness is such a shock he feels it in his dick, kicked into hardness so fast he thinks for a moment he’s jizzed in his shorts, has to clack his teeth on a moan. 

He keeps the smoke inside until he can’t stand it anymore. 

*

They’re back in Jonny’s truck, and back at Patrick’s house, and he’s got the door open when he turns and says, “We have our annual Kane barbeque day after tomorrow, you should come.”

Jonny nods, hands on the wheel. “Yeah,” he says. “Jess invited me. I’ll be there.”

“Oh. Right.”

“See you,” Jonny says, but Patrick barely hears him, has already slammed the door closed.

*

And then—

“Jonny.”

But he’s alone in the room. Alone when he awkwardly tucks his dick back into his swimsuit. Alone when he peeks out the bedroom to see if the coast is clear, fast-walks to the bathroom and washes his hand clean of spunk. Alone in his bedroom sitting on his mom’s stationary bike like that’s gonna be his excuse if someone comes looking for him.

Alone with his guilt. 

*

Jonny breaks up with Jess the day after the BBQ.

*

It’s Erica that tells him. Erica who has _no idea_. Who knocks on Patrick’s door at ten that night and slips inside without Patrick saying it’s okay. Comes in like she isn’t worried he’s gonna have his dick out, and it’s so like when they were fifteen and fourteen that Patrick doesn’t have it in him to tell her off for it. 

This is exactly why the showers became a thing. 

She sits on the edge of the bed and waits for him to pause his hockey podcast, take off his airpods, and sit up against the headboard of his bed. She doesn’t look distressed but he can tell it’s serious.

“Jonny broke up with Jess,” she says, no preamble. Drops the news like it isn’t a bomb and Patrick isn’t about to get blown away by it.

His stomach jumps, lurches, does a couple other things he’s not certain of. 

“What? Why?”

She shrugs, picks at her nails. “Dunno. Just told her it wasn’t working out. That he didn’t want to string her along.”

That last part snaps at Patrick like a whip. He’s been alternating between replaying yesterday’s events in his head and drowning them out, but now all he can feel is the weight of those eyes on him, on his hand, on his cock. All he can see is how hard Jonny was too. 

He swallows, says, “They hadn’t been together for long, though,” but it sounds too much like an excuse, and he tries to hide it by shifting up the bed, keeps going with, “I know they’d talk about when he’d have to go back to Canada, but it was more a summer thing, right?” but that’s worse—too guilty, too hopeful, and he’s panicking. 

Erica just shrugs again, oblivious. No reason to think her brother’s the type to jerk off in front of her sister’s boyfriend. “I don’t know. Either way she’s pretty broken up over it. I think she really liked him. You know how she is.”

“No self-preservation.”

He’s the worst fucking brother. 

“Sucks,” he says, finally, utterly fucking useless. 

Erica hums her assent. “Anyway,” she says, getting up. “Just wanted to let you know so it’s not awkward at breakfast or something.”

“Should I talk to her?”

What the fuck, that’s a terrible idea.

“Nah, she was calling Chloé when I left her. Think it’s more of a best friend time than a sibling time.”

Patrick nods, clears his throat, ashamed of how relieved he feels. “Kay. Thanks for letting me know.”

He’s got his cock in hand the moment the door clicks closed. 

*

It’s the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up the next day and then he stops thinking about it until he’s banging with a fist on Jonny’s camper, too earlly for such noise, and he hears, “Fuck, Christ, what is it?” steps back just in time so he doesn’t get hit in the face with a swinging door.

And then he can think of nothing else.

Jonny’s shirtless. More than shirtless. He’s only wearing tight cotton briefs and _this is how he opens the door_. He spots Patrick, raises an eyebrow and leans with his forearm against the wall, above his head, like he’s posing for a fucking Calvin Klein ad or something. 

“What.”

God. What a bitch. Patrick wants to grab his junk and tell him to get himself off that way, give him nothing else but his tongue in his mouth until he creams the inside of his ridiculous underwear. He’s got that mood under his skin—that filthy angry edge.

I fucking hate you, he almost spits out in Jonny’s flat, unimpressed face, energy gathered up in his hand like he’s ready to punch it out. “Fuck off, you know what,” he grits out instead, righteous on big brother juice and an unhealthy dose of guilt. 

Jonny keeps staring, widens his eyes pointedly with a sarcastic head tilt forward that should rile up Patrick more but has the opposite effect, pops his anger clean out of his lungs like a needle to a balloon. 

Patrick sighs.

Jonny sighs. 

“Fucking come in, it’s cold,” he says and turns around, disappears back inside and lets the door slam shut before Patrick can catch it.

“Fucking put some clothes on and you won’t be,” Patrick replies as he wrenches the door open and steps in after him. 

The inside feels smaller than it looks from the outside, maybe because they’re two grownass men filling the space. Hard to believe whole families live in these for weeks on end without committing murder. 

Since Jonny doesn’t give a fuck about his neighbours, Patrick lets the door slam shut again behind him, stays in the narrow sunken square of the steps, with his shoulders almost touching cabinets. Jonny fills a glass of water from the tap at the little sink to his right, plops it on the table as he walks past to sit on the edge of his bed. The table is cheap beige formica, the benches in a semi-circle around it have deep orange cushions, threadbare in places where people have sat too many times. All the floral curtains are drawn, the bed propped in one of the pop up parts, elevated with messy sheets crumpled at the feet. Everything is hazy and yellow, light diffused, shadows long but warm. The air is warm, too, has the consistency and smell of enclosed spaces where bodies sleep. 

Jonny doesn’t bother putting clothes on.

Patrick slides into the bench facing him, cups his hands around the glass. It’s plastic, the kind his family used to have when they were kids and his mom didn’t want them to break her good dishes. 

“Is this where you tell me off for hurting your sister,” Jonny finally says when it’s clear Patrick isn’t gonna talk first. 

That’s why he’s here, isn’t it? 

He takes a sip of water. “She really liked you,” he says, slides the glass from his right hand to his left, and back.

“I know.”

He stares at his hands, down to the floor, then at Jonny. Always, it feels, back to Jonny. “Then why?”

The silence stretches long and heavy while they look at each other, until Jonny breaks it, shifts around on his bed to lean against the wall of the camper, fit his body back into the grooves of the pillows. One leg off and one leg bent, thigh thick and wide, soft-looking at the inside there, where his underwear have completely hiked up to his groin. It smells like plastic and cheap wood in here, like sheets and skin and the sea.

“Because,” Jonny starts, stretching out the syllables, eyes on the low ceiling, and everything’s quiet but Patrick can barely hear him over the sound of his own heart in his ears. “Because I—I wanted to fuck her brother more.”

And there it is. Matter-of-fact and tired and resigned all at once. 

It takes a while for the words to cross the small distance between them, to reach Patrick, but when they do, it’s a full-body assault. His hands get wet, his whole skin heats up, prickles, his lungs collapse, his heart starts to run even faster. His dick thickens.

He takes a long, loud breath through his nose, clenches the edge of the table. 

Jonny slants his eyes at him, turns his head, says, soft, almost pitying. “Do they know?”

Patrick shakes his head, gulps some water, throat dry and thick, closed up. “No.” He wraps his hands around the glass again to keep from adjusting himself in his shorts, drawing attention to it. He can’t look at Jonny, but catches him shifting a little from the corner of his eye.

“Do you—” More shifting, throat clearing. “Do you want it?”

“What,” he snaps, catches Jonny’s eyes, chin up. “You think I wanna sit on the same dick my sister sat on?”

Jonny doesn’t even blink, says, “I don’t know, do you?” hand at his side bunched up in the sheet, a tight fist.

Of course Patrick wants. He’s been thinking about little else for the past three weeks in a show of sexual fixation he hasn’t experienced since he was a young teenager discovering his dick for what felt like the first time.

Jonny was just something he wasn’t supposed to have. Safe in its inaccessibility. 

Something must show on his face because Jonny sighs, looks away, says, “Or I could sit on yours, if you want,” to the ceiling. 

It’s the shift of his hips that does it. A small move of them like he’s thinking about having Patrick’s dick there and he can’t help it. Grinds on the imaginary thickness. 

Patrick’s up before he’s aware he is, fingertips a soft slide over the tabletop beside him, catching in a seam of the formica where it’s split. The space is so small, there’s maybe two steps, three at most between him and the bed. Between his body and Jonny’s. Might as well be the whole goddamn ocean. 

But then he’s there, between a breath and the next, and his hand is on Jonny’s knee, fingers pressed slightly into the skin, up to mid-thigh, and back down, skin as soft as he thought it’d be. Can’t look away from the contrast, a certain disconnect between what he sees and feels until he makes himself flatten his hand, grab the whole, thick muscle, Jonny going stockstill under his touch. 

He’s hard. They both are. Jonny’s dick a bulge between his bare thighs that Patrick watches twitch and fatten when he curls his hand in slow. 

“What do you want,” Jonny whispers, kicks Patrick out of his stare, and then again, slower, when he looks at him, hand grabbing his wrist, “What—do you want.”

It’s too shaky when he says, “Let me blow you,” too obvious he’s wanting too much. As shaky as he feels inside, vibrating in his skin.

Jonny groans, quick hands already at his waistband, Patrick meets them with his own where they tangle for a moment as he tries to tug and Jonny tries to lift up. Has to unbend his leg long enough for Patrick to drag them all the way down to his knees, his calves, leaves them there for Jonny to kick off, already zeroing on where he wants to be.

He was right: Jonny’s dick is _pretty_. Hard and silky looking, with the head already dark and pushing past the foreskin, wet at the slit. His pubes are short and neat, either trimmed or a new regrowth of a shave, and he’s a size Patrick wants to fill his mouth with.

It’s a sudden flurry of movement to get himself situated, Jonny hitching himself up the bed until he has to bend his neck some when his head meets the ceiling, but spreads his legs easy when Patrick opens them up with his hands, one sliding off the bed and the other bent up, wide to the side. It’s a kick of want between Patrick’s legs at how easy it is, and he wishes there was more space for him to properly lay him out, get himself flat on his stomach and smothered good between his thighs. But he manages the next best thing, his front half on the bed, half off, leg hitched up high enough Jonny plants his foot on his thigh and lifts up, demanding, says,

“Take it,” voice broken up, dick a bob that almost catches Patrick across the cheek. “Been wanting—” 

“Yeah?” Patrick glances at him, but gets back to the pretty sight of him there, within reach of his mouth, preoccupied by how he’s gonna go about taking him apart. He skims his fingers from the inside of his thigh to the crease of his groin, hard through the shorn pubes before closing his fist around his dick. “You have?”

Jonny doesn’t reply, only pinches his lips together and shakes his head, rolls his hips up.

“Shit,” Patrick whispers. And then, “Shoulda known you’d be this way,” and doesn’t know what he means by it, but bares the head of Jonny’s dick, fits his lips around it and gives it a good suck. 

He’s met by an immediate shout and a press upwards that he feels from his mouth to his own dick, so heavy now between his legs he grinds it hard against the edge of the bed, makes himself feel it.

He likes sucking dick. Likes doing it fast and wet. And there’s a part of him that wishes he could slow down and appreciate this more, but it’s three weeks of intense sexual fantasies and he’s just rolling down that hill gathering speed with no way of stopping himself. 

When Jonny’s slick enough, Patrick wraps his arm around his thigh and holds on while he goes down on him proper. 

Jonny’s hands are in his hair, fingers dragged through and then palms flat. He doesn’t push down, just makes himself felt, like he’s just there to touch. Patrick wouldn’t mind too much if he took a little, fucked up and made him choke a bit but this is good too: these long, wet, _tight_ sucked mouthfuls up and down. Harsh breaths through his nose, spit down his chin, and Jonny’s smell everywhere, the thick hardness, softness of him. 

“Get yourself off,” Jonny pants, lifts his foot from Patrick’s leg to dig his heel in his ass.

Patrick moans. Starts a regular grind, sharp and quick until he remembers Jonny’s watching and he slows down, pops his ass out, sweeps down to get himself shivery good.

“Yeah,” Jonny says. “Saw you that day, thought you—”

Patrick comes up for air, smiles and feels how messy his face is in the stretch of it. Levels himself with Jonny’s face and blinks through the heat in his eyes, clinging to his lashes. “I was.”

Jonny bites his lip, shakes his head again, hand dragging down along Patrick’s jaw to wipe at the mess of his chin.

“Did this alone too,” Patrick continues, goes back to fucking the mattress between Jonny’s thighs. “Hadn’t since I was a kid thinking about getting my dick wet—”

Jonny looks dumb, eyes wide and dark, mouth open and wet. So dumb and so hot and so exactly what Patrick wants.

He’s not spread out the way he should be for easy access, but Patrick reaches down all the same. Gets his hand between them, past Jonny’s balls and between his cheeks, tight in that space but enough for him to drag a finger down, find that heated spot at the center of him. Holds Jonny’s gaze when he pushes inside, dry and slow.

He’s so hot inside, Patrick wants to scream.

“Thought about this the moment I saw you.” Jonny pants heavy, a low sound coming up and out of his mouth, and Patrick presses in more, gets to his second knuckle. “Thought it’d be a fucking tragedy if you didn’t like it. Wanted to see if you did.” He punctuates his words with a telling roll of his hips, and moans, closes his eyes, head going heavy on his neck. Can’t think past the thick fuzz in his brain.

He watches his hand there, how deep his middle finger is. Watches the bounce of Jonny’s dick, the tight circle of his hips like he’s trying to screw himself onto what’s inside him, and he takes him back into his mouth, sucks on the head and fucks in deeper with his hand, makes Jonny come with another shout, muffled quick with a flat hand.

_God._

He swallows as Jonny shakes under him, mouths at the softening length of him while pumping his hips faster. No thought given about coming into his pants when Jonny grabs his face with both his hands, tells him, “I fucking do,” and Patrick’s the one creaming his underwear.

He slumps right after, forehead on Jonny’s stomach and softening dick against his cheek while he rides his orgasm, Jonny’s fingers a soothing touch in his hair.

Fuck, he thinks.

He shouldn’t have done that.

*

He leaves without a word, while Jonny is still naked on the bed and unable to follow. Grabs the glass off the table and gulps the rest of the water, leaves it in the sink. Then he’s off. 

*

He avoids Jess all evening.

He doesn’t touch his dick that night, but lies on his back with his arms under his head and replays the whole thing in his mind, every single touch. Presses his tongue on the roof of his mouth where Jonny’s dick pressed too. Lets spit pool underneath it, swallows it like he did his come. 

And Jonny’s face—red and pained and blissed out.

*

He’s at Jonny’s door the next day.

*

When he parks his car in the same spot he did when he first arrived, the sky has just started changing from faded blue and grey to something brighter, a line of yellow along the horizon, pale pinks spreading, darkening. The ocean is far, the beach long and sandy-dark like an extra sea tacked onto the water, and the wind chilly with night, salty enough Patrick can taste it on his lips.

He doesn’t aim for the waves this time, but takes the boardwalk, the same path he and Jonny took that day. Makes it slow, enough for the sun to rise more, for the day to properly start.

Jonny could be out fishing or he could be sleeping, so Patrick sits in the plastic chair Jonny left by his small grill. If he’s out, he’ll come back soon. If he’s sleeping, he’ll wake eventually and Patrick will hear him and knock on the door. He’ll knock on the door and tell him he’s sorry for yesterday and that it can’t happen again.

It can’t happen again. 

He’s starting over. He’s doing it right. He doesn’t want complicated. His sister is more important. There are other hot gay dudes in this town for when he’s out, for when he’s working, for when he’s got his own place, and none of them have fucked one of his siblings. Or broken up with them because they wanted on Patrick’s dick instead.

Sorry, buddy, the Kane shop is closed. 

“Have you ever heard of the telephone.”

Patrick startles out of a doze, is up on his feet before he’s fully awake. The sun’s higher now, not quite over the treetops at his back but enough spills through the branches to dapple over the grass and Jonny’s body.

He looks exactly like the first time Patrick saw him, throws him for a loop when he realizes it’s been less than a month. It feels like much longer. Like he’s spent a whole year with him in his head and that time is felt even though it didn’t happen. 

He drags a hand down his face to wake himself up, to hide the shift he feels coming onto it at seeing him, says, “I’m sorry for basically dining and dashing on you yesterday,” aimed more at the grass. 

“That’s an interesting choice of words there, bud,” Jonny says, dry, but with a tick at the corner of his mouth that loosens Patrick a little, makes it okay for him to roll his eyes.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I.”

“You do.”

Now the tick is there again, followed by another. A grin or a smile trying not to be one, and Patrick responds to it before he knows it’s happening, slips easy into the moment, not charged yet but feeling like it’s on the verge of it, like it’s psyching itself up to be more.

It can’t happen again, he should say. 

It can’t happen again it can’t happen again it can’t happen again it can’t happen again.

IT 👏 CAN’T 👏 HAPPEN 👏 AGAIN 👏

Jonny keeps his eyes on Patrick as he leans his fishing rod against the picnic table, sets his cooler and tackle box on the seat, like he’s somehow worried Patrick’s gonna actually dash again. Fuck off and never be seen again. WHICH HE SHOULD. He’s rooted where he stands. Meets those dark eyes and watches as Jonny bridges the space between them.

It can’t happen again.

Say it dammit.

He stops close enough it wouldn’t be awkward to reach for him, wouldn’t take any work at all, but not so close it would look like what it _definitely_ is to anyone onlooking. Not so close it’d make Patrick want to glance around with unease. They are what they are without appearing to be, and for the first time, Patrick wonders if it’s for his own benefit or Jonny’s. How many men has this man fucked before to know this exact distance.

“I got work today,” Jonny says, hands shoved in his pockets, all nonchalance and low enough only Patrick would hear if there were other people around.

“Okay.” Patrick nods. Say the fucking words, Patrick. 

He could just bend him over the picnic table. Use his spit to fuck him rough and bare. 

“So,” Jonny continues. He tilts his head backwards, looks at the trees behind Patrick and his face is flooded in sunlight, bathed in it. He has a scar on his lip, slightly crooked teeth. A softness to him Patrick wants to slot into. 

“So,” he echoes, catching Jonny’s slant of eyes, the quirk of his lips.

You’re the worst, Patrick.

*

Jonny smells like the seaside—brine and water and that hint of fish that should be gross but isn’t, familiar and fitting, like Jonny has soaked up the shore. It comes off his clothes when he gets close, inches himself between Patrick’s knees where he sits on the edge of the bed—the same bed as yesterday and still unmade, still rumpled like there hasn’t been a day and a night in between then and now. He gets another whiff when Jonny takes off his shirt, and then it’s all skin and nipples and Patrick doesn’t wait for permission, slides a hand over Jonny’s naked waist to the small of his back and tugs him that much closer.

His skin is soft under his cheek, the tip of his nose. Nipple immediately hard under the press of his tongue. He circles it once, gives it a full-mouthed suck, groan muffled when Jonny’s hand is suddenly at the back of his head with good, demanding pressure, and then gone as quick as it came, urgent between their bodies, at Patrick’s waistband. 

“My turn,” he says, doubled over with his mouth in Patrick’s hair and a tone like he’s figuring out what he wants as it’s happening. “You—You should make me feel it. Make my jaw hurt for hours.”

Patrick groans again, too loud, half hard to fully hard with a speed that makes his eyes water. He wants that too—wants nothing else—certainty lava-hot in his stomach. 

Jonny takes a small step back to get at Patrick’s pants better and it’s enough for Patrick to see how red he is across the face, too early in these proceedings to be anything else but a blush—embarrassment or need or both. It makes his heart lurch in his ribcage, makes him say, “You should kiss me,” and touch Jonny’s jaw, fingers at the hinge like he could drag him from there.

Jonny crashes into him, almost tips him on his back, and the painful clash of their mouths shifts quickly into something open and wet, almost furious. He’s got spit over his lips, under his nose, across his chin in the space of a few heartbeats, both of them pushing in so hard, like that’ll keep them standing in the middle, their mouths the keystone to the whole affair. 

Patrick’s grateful Jonny misses how he chases after his mouth when the kiss breaks, his hands back to busying themselves at Patrick’s shorts, and eyes glued there too. Grateful the small high sound that escapes him is swallowed up by their fast breaths and Jonny’s frustrated French swearing.

“Fuck, get these off, come on,” he says.

Slow down, Patrick thinks, but says, “No you,” nonsensical and dumb.

The space is too narrow, awkward with how big they both are, and Jonny has to fully fall back, knocks into the table behind him in his haste, for Patrick to stretch his legs up and out and get his shorts off. They’ve barely hit the counter where he throws them that Jonny’s back in, kneeling in that too-small space, filling it up with his thighs and his chest and his shoulders. 

It’d look ridiculous if anyone could see them, Patrick with lifted legs over the low cupboards on each side so that he can spread proper for Jonny’s mouth. His cock hard and heavy, dark at the tip without having been sucked on yet, pure anticipation.

“Knew you’d be like this,” Jonny says, eyes on Patrick cock, and they both watch it jump, excited and beading wet.

“You’ve seen before,” Patrick whispers, and then regrets voicing it. A panicked little twist in his stomach that the reminder of what led them here will put a stop to it. Can't decide why he ever wanted to stop it.

Jonny just shakes his head, wraps a hand around Patrick’s cock like he’s truly measuring its girth, palm followed by fingers, a thumb pressing hard and up on the underside. A slow experimental pump of the wrist. 

Patrick groans through the skip in his chest.The _You've thought of this too_ in his mind gone before it can even leave his lungs, but felt all the same there, in the space left when they contract, emptied out of all air by how good this feels. Dizzy with it. 

He lets Jonny set his own pace. Grabs the edge of the mattress with tight fists and watches with wide eyes as he takes him slow into his mouth. Watches him adapt to the size, work his jaw wider, take a bit more. Holding his breath so he hears the wet sound of his cock being swallowed, of a throat working to take as much of him as it can until Jonny hits a point that makes him gag.

He looks so fucking stupid. Looks truly affronted and disappointed in himself, betrayed by his own body, but his mouth is still tight around him, cheeks puffed as he gets control back over himself. 

“Keep your hand at that spot,” Patrick whispers, touches Jonny’s cheekbone with his fingertips and then drags his hand into Jonny’s hair, grabs at it at the back of his head, and slides to the edge of the mattress. It forces Jonny to scoot back an inch or two, give Patrick that extra amount of space for the leverage he needs to fuck in and take over.

Make him feel it.

He’s careful. Heart hammering in his chest so hard he thinks he’ll be bruised inside after this. He goes in slow until Jonny’s fist hits his mouth and then out. Does it again. And again. Faster.

Harder. 

Jonny’s eyes never leave his and Patrick never looks away except to blink heat and sweat, and he thinks it’s the sweetest blowjob he’s ever gotten even as Jonny’s eyes water and spill and his hand works furiously inside his own pants.

*

He’s still catching his breath as he watches Jonny change his underwear. Pick up a pair of work jeans from the gigantic messy pile of clothes on the other bed across the camper and slide them over his ass, put a shirt on after giving it a sniff. 

His body’s heavy, his movements slow. That deep orgasm ache settled nice inside his muscles. He’s only done putting his soft dick back in his underwear and Jonny’s already at the door.

“Stay as long as you need,” he says, still so red in the face he’s probably gonna have to make up an excuse to the guys he hired to help him. He rubs at the hinge of his jaw tellingly and grins. “Just make sure to turn the lock when you leave.” 

And then he’s gone. 

Patrick blinks, brain still trying to catch up to the events, when there’s two bangs on the side of the camper—a hand hitting metal—and he thinks he hears, “Dine and dash,” and laughs. Slides to the floor into that too tight space and laughs, bone-deep satisfied. 

* 

The good feeling lasts for as long as it takes him to get back home and find Jess in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal looking like Santa forgot her this year. 

“Hey,” she says, mouth full, her hair loose and tangled. It’s still early but she has the look of someone who hasn’t slept much, features pulled down like gravity’s tugging harder on her. 

“Hey.”

Shit.

With his back to her, he takes his time grabbing a bowl from the cupboard, pouring cereal and milk, cutting fruit, buttering toast, slow about it, hoping the pain in his chest will dissipate. But when he turns, she’s still there, swirling her spoon after the last dredges of food floating in her bowl.

He can still feel Jonny’s mouth on his cock.

“I’m sorry about Jonny,” he says eventually, awkward to his own ears, stilted like a lie. 

But he is. He is sorry. He’s sorry she’s sad. He’s sorry he flirted with her boyfriend. He’s sorry he had sex with him this morning. He’s sorry.

“Thanks.” She shrugs, face crumpled. “It’d been only a couple months, not even, it’s not a big deal.”

“Still,” Patrick says, despite himself, big brother instincts kicking in _finally_. “It sucks.”

“It does.” Her chin wobbles. She bites her bottom lip hard. And Patrick’s around the counter before he can think of how much of a fucking hypocrite and liar he is, how he has no right to wrap his arm around her shoulders and let her hide a little cry in his shirt as he rubs her back while his dick is still tacky with Jonny’s spit.

Yeah, he fucking sucks. 

“Wanna watch Dirty Dancing?” he says once she’s done and she’s rubbed her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears. Anything to push past this moment.

“I don’t know,” she says. “His name’s Johnny too, you know.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You’re gonna let Jonathan Toews ruin Dirty Dancing for you?” Jackie says coming into the kitchen, ponytail swinging behind her, face flushed like she just finished her workout. She widens her eyes at Jess, makes a funny face at her. “You gonna let him put you in a corner, huh?”

Jess laughs. It’s wet and weak but it’s a laugh, and Patrick bounces on his heels, throws a look to the staircase like he’s looking for his exit. A shower and a bed and a space without any heartbreak he’s caused. It was easier when he could just delete a number off his phone or avoid a club for a while. 

This is his _sister_.

Jess swipes a hand over her eyes again, straightens up with more bravado than she clearly feels. “You’re right,” she tells Jackie.

“I _am_ right.”

“Fuck, Jonny.”

“YEAH. FUCK JONNY!”

Hahahaha. Fuck Jonny. Get it?

Christ.

The shit way he feels is made worse and better when they’re all lounging on the couches, talking over the movie, running constant commentary, singing along with the soundtrack. It’s exactly like when they were kids. Jess in the middle, Patrick and Jackie not having needed one word said out loud to decide on this. And that too, is like when they were young. Always able to access this sort of silent protective understanding when one of them needed it, even among all the petty fighting and screaming and teenage bullshit. 

Patrick looks at his sister, at her tired profile and dirty hair, but her smile too, laughing along with her as she yells at Lisa for being an idiot and fuck, god, he loves her. 

He loves her so much. 

*

He makes himself wait. Tells himself if he does, maybe the itch will leave and he won’t want to sneak out of the house to see if Jonny meant it when he said he’d sit on Patrick’s dick. If he’d make good on the offer. He hangs out with his sisters, helps his mom and dad with house chores, goes to the beach, takes drives down the coast. 

Two days. It takes two days before he gets a text.

_Oh look I’m using my phone_

_Wow_

_Technology am I right?_

Patrick snorts, rolls his eyes, stomach swooping low. Swooping hard.

Jonny. 

From across the living room, Erica raises an eyebrow at him, and he says, “Funny meme,” with what feels like an entirely too high level of cheer, but she returns to her book without comment, and Patrick is warm around the collar way more than this justifies. 

He shuffles on the couch so that he’s fully hiding the phone from her—as if she could read anything from this distance—and is about to reply when a fourth text comes in:

_Free tomorrow afternoon if you’re interested_

The first thing he feels is relief. And then this clench of want in his core so sudden he has to grip the cushion tight to stop himself from pressing the heel of his hand against his junk. Tries to breathe out quiet to calm his nerves without Erica hearing him.

_Will be there at 1_ , he types—too fast, too eager.

He excuses himself, crosses paths with both his mom and then Jackie on his way to his bedroom—yeah just gonna take a nap—so fucking casual he’d deserve an Oscar. Closes his bedroom door behind him and locks it for good measure, hand already in his pants before he’s thrown himself on the bed. 

*

12:45 and he’s buzzing out of his skin, already heavy-hot between his legs. Hesitates only for a second before grabbing his lube and condoms.

There’s no use pretending that they’re not meeting up exactly for this. Patrick has sent and received more than his fair share of booty calls in the last few years to know one when he sees one.

The public parking lot is full, so he parks on a side street a few blocks away and walks to the campground. 

It’s packed. Tourists everywhere—all awake, coming and going, cooking, kids playing. And he feels himself sharply yanked back a few years, with that fear in every crevice of his body, that certainty that one look at his face and everyone would know—what he is, what he likes, what he wants all the time.

He takes a deep shaky breath and squares his shoulders. Lets it out slow and forces himself to relax. No one here knows him. It’s fine. By the time he’s made it through to Jonny’s camper, things have quieted down. His closest neighbour doesn’t seem to be there either—no one outside, curtains drawn.

Once again, Jonny opens the door in his underwear and nothing else. 

“You’re doing it on purpose,” Patrick says, makes his once-over obvious.

“I was getting changed,” Jonny replies, settles in his Calvin Klein pose. 

Patrick wonders if he’s thought that through. If he sat in his little camper, at his little table, thinking about what would be the perfect pose to look his best, effortless and on display. 

“Sure.”

They smile at each other—too easy. 

Jonny’s eyes flit over his head and around to check if they’re alone. He says, “I didn’t know if you—If you would—But I—I couldn’t stop thinking about your dick,” so low Patrick half hears it, half reads it on his lips. Red darkens over Jonny’s neck, his face, almost immediately. 

“You gonna let me in, or you wanna do this here?” he says, voice gravelly, and takes a step closer—could lean in with little effort to kiss a line across Jonny’s collarbone, lick up his neck. Instead adds, “Could bend you over the table there, make it quick before your neighbour comes back,” soft like a secret, but like he means it, and maybe he does. Maybe he’s that crazy for it. He watches Jonny shiver, watches his eyelids flutter, his mouth part with a soft sound, lips sticking together for one brief moment.

“Do it over the table inside,” he says, a crack on the last word, eyes locked on the picnic table behind Patrick like he’s really seeing himself there.

He doesn’t move quite yet, lets this thing between them build a little, can feel the anticipation pressing on his skin until it seeps in, sets fire to Patrick’s veins. 

“Think you can take me?” he says, quiet, moves his hand so it barely brushes Jonny’s knee. The clench of his thigh muscle is sweet.

“Can’t stop thinking about it,” Jonny breathes out with a sincerity that lights up Patrick even more.

He licks his lips, skims his fingertips higher on Jonny’s leg and watches goosebumps appear in their wake. “That’s not what I asked”

“Yes,” Jonny replies, quick, grabs Patrick’s wrist even quicker just as he was about to touch him where he was aiming at, the obvious hard bulge in his underwear. He lets himself be pulled inside, his own moan lost in the sound of the door slamming shut. 

“Get naked,” Jonny says, space so small his breath skips over Patrick’s cheek. He takes a step back, gets out of his underwear, and Patrick’s distracted by the whole of his body on display like he hasn’t had the chance to really see before. 

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , he’s gorgeous. 

It’s enough to punch a, “Turn around,” out of him, breathy and telling, throat so dry he has to swallow twice before, “Please.”

Jonny’s splotchy red across the nose, his shoulders, and the color deepens, but he does as told. Little smile cocked sideways like he knows exactly why Patrick’s asking, obvious that he does when he reaches behind himself and grabs one of his cheeks with a wide hand, squeezes and parts it for a second before letting go, a lightning-fast show of his hole for Patrick to glimpse.

“You’re still not naked,” Jonny says, and his voice isn’t right either, affected.

He drops his bag with a loud thud, takes off his shirt, his shoes, socks, his pants and underwear in one move, eyes stuck there, on Jonny’s ass, that spot now hidden.

It’s barely a step to get to him. To flatten his front against his back and wrap an arm around his chest, other hand to his hip to keep him there. To roll his hips in a move that rubs his dick warm in between his cheeks just like he’s imagined dozens of times. Full contact of naked skin, hot and soft, so good it immediately tips into not enough.

Jonny lets him get fully hard this way, with a hard rutting against him, hand against the cupboards and the other gripping Patrick’s wrist at his chest, until Patrick wants properly in more than he wants to make himself come like this.

“Wanna see you,” Jonny says, turning around in Patrick’s arms, and it’s true, Patrick realizes, he’s never been naked in front of him this way before. 

Jonny’s eyes are dark, raking heat over Patrick’s body. “Fuck, you’re hot,” he says like it pains him a little—hands a demanding sweep over his shoulders, down his pecs where he presses thumbs over his nipples, makes Patrick shout and buck into his touch.

“You drive me crazy,” Patrick says, meaning more than this moment, but this too, head clouded up.

Jonny closes the space between them and kisses him.

It’s firmer and deeper than their last kiss. Feels like Jonny’s trying to press the whole of himself into it, and Patrick wants the same. Wants to climb inside him and never come out.

It’s great noisy gulps of air when they finally part, and Jonny’s back in before they’ve caught their breaths with tiny kisses over Patrick’s mouth, his cheek, his jaw, quick catches of his lips that match the fast beating of Patrick’s heart, zings down his spine like small electroshocks. 

He flattens his hands over Jonny’s ass. Stretches them wide for a good grip, a hard squeeze and a dip in between. Catches him where he’s hot, a quick pass of his finger. Jonny goes heavy, slumps against him with his forehead on Patrick’s and a groan. 

“I gotta fuck you,” Patrick says, turns his head to kiss at whatever skin’s there, finger back inside but less of a tease, finding his hole and giving it a hard rub. His hips buck when he feels the spasmic clench of it, their cocks slide together. “I gotta get inside you.” 

“Shit, fuck,” Jonny says, and then something in French that Patrick doesn’t understand, but assumes is equally hot. “You brought stuff?”

Patrick nods, kisses Jonny’s neck and lets him go, says, “Yeah—yes. I got it,” urgent and already reaching for his bag, setting the lube and a rubber on the table. And the reprieve is good, the slight distance. He’s so wound up, desire so high, he’d come way too quickly if they kept going this way.

He lubes up his dick and rolls the condom on right away so he won’t have to do it later when Jonny’s ready. So he won’t have to waste time. Jonny watches him do it and Patrick feels so hot under his gaze that he has to focus extra hard not to look like he’s never done this before, fingers shaky with want.

“Don’t think mine would have fit you,” Jonny says.

Patrick looks up, grins. Waggles his eyebrows and makes him laugh. 

The light in the camper is orange-thick and warm. Little flowered yellow and red drapes closed across all the windows, sunlight diffused, air like molasses, already heavy with the smell of sweat and skin, of trapped panted breaths.

He opens his mouth, closes it. Licks his lips and swallows, tries again. “Over the table?” so stupid with it he has to ask, cock giving a hard kick in his hand. 

Jonny blinks at him, then rushes in for a quick, messy kiss and a smile pressed above Patrick’s upper lip, says, “I want all of it,” with a flush and darting eyes in a show that’s starting to tell he’s embarrassed by his own talk, and god, that’s hot too. Patrick wants to make him talk more just to see him squirm, see how deep and how low that red can get. 

The cold metal edge of the table can’t be that comfortable across Jonny’s middle, but he doesn’t complain, lets Patrick press a wide hand between his shoulder blades until his cheek is flush to the formica and he’s grabbed the opposite edge of the table. Patrick still takes both hips in hand, pulls him back slightly for comfort, for a quick reach around to his dick, and then grabs the lube.

“How quick do you want this?” he asks, squirting a generous amount onto his fingers and then in between Jonny’s cheeks. “The stretching I mean.” He hopes Jonny says quick. He hopes Jonny says slow.

“Quick.” Jonny’s face is a mix of blissed out and impatient when he looks back at Patrick. “You can take it slow another time.” 

Three fingers, he thinks. Three fingers. 

He goes in with two. Jonny presses back for his hand almost immediately. 

“God fuck,” Patrick says, “you’re a guy’s wet dream, you know that?” He stretches him fast, teases his hole with a third finger after only a few pumps of his hand. “Well, this guy anyway.” He sees Jonny look back at him again from the corner of his eye.

“Add one,” Jonny says, and it’s just that, this surreal atmosphere made of their whispered voices and in between, only their breathing, the soft little moans spilling out of Jonny’s lips, the squelching sound of Patrick’s fingers. 

He shifts to the side and bends over Jonny’s back, kisses his shoulder. “Anyone ever eat your ass, Jonny? Anyone ever put their tongue inside you?”

Jonny’s panting hard and Patrick can see the fogging of his breath across the tabletop even if he can’t see his mouth, the wetness sticking there. “You been thinking about that?” he asks, shifts his hands a little for a better grip, a better way to help Patrick stretch him.

“Yeah,” Patrick says, wipes his sweaty forehead over Jony’s skin. “A lot.” His heart skips, his stomach swoops down with a tiny thread of anxiety, a secret he wasn’t meant to share, had never planned to, but good, hot over his tongue. “You have no idea how—Been wanting to bury my face in there so bad.”

“You should start with your dick.”

Patrick stills his hand. “Now?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, audibly swallows. “I’m ready, come on.”

He has to spread his legs to be the right height, to avoid the hole of the steps behind, adds lube everywhere it needs to go one last time, and then he’s lining up, and then he’s in. 

“Jesus,” Jonny groans. “Fuck, you’re big.”

Patrick laughs, a high little croak that makes him sound unhinged, and he kinda feels unhinged too, blasted out of his mind even though, “It’s only the tip.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jonny says. “I can tell.” He squeezes his ass and Patrick’s legs buckle a little, has him clinging to Jonny’s hips with both hands, digits digging in. 

“You been thinking about this?” He presses forward, stops to let him adjust. Does it again. “This dick?” 

“Yes.”

“This dick inside you?”

“Yes, fuck.” Jonny switches a hand to the side of the table, gives himself leverage to straighten up and turn enough to glare at him. “Just get the fuck in, Patrick.”

And Patrick does, one long, slow slide in without looking away, holding Jonny’s gaze with his own until he’s flushed deep, sweaty skin sticking. It can’t be easy, he knows, Jonny’s _tight_ , but he takes it, blinking and breathing heavy. Patrick soothes him. Rubs his hip, his lower back. Up his sweaty spine to that wide stretch of skin between his shoulder blades, and then up some more to the base of his neck.

He presses down.

Jonny goes with a moan, almost a collapse against the table and it’s one of the hottest things Patrick’s ever seen happen around his dick, under his hands, so hot inside himself he feels like he could spit fire. Like he’s five seconds away from being one of those weird stories about spontaneous combustions.

He guesses this isn’t gonna be a slow affair—doesn’t want it to be—and Jonny doesn’t complain when Patrick pulls out, snaps back in with enough force to make their skin crack together. After that, he doesn’t slow down, doesn’t think he could. Holds on to Jonny’s hips and fucks him fast and hard. The kind of fucking that’d look painful if it didn’t feel so good. 

He’s half conscious of the whole camper rocking with them, but doesn’t care in that moment. Doesn’t care about anything but this. Selfish about it until he sees Jonny try to reach under himself for his cock, and then Patrick’s shifting with him, one hand reaching for Jonny’s shoulder for leverage, and the other reaching around, finding his cock so soppy there he’s half wondering if Jonny’s pissed himself.

“Christ, you’re wet,” he grits out, hears the thunk of Jonny’s forehead on the table, a long, low moan pressed to the table top. “Next time. Next time, gonna eat your ass and milk you dry.” He can’t fucking shut up, just ruts hard inside him, hand fast over his dick where it keeps getting slick it’s a miracle he hasn’t come. “Bet you’d be so fucking pretty when you do. Or I could—fuck, I could take you bare with just this and spit.”

“Shut up,” Jonny moans. “Oh my god, shut up shut up shut up.”

Patrick smiles, happy and pained and hits the edge right there, right on the next thrust, orgasm knocking into him without warning.

“Shiiiit,” he bites out. “Holy fucking shit.”

“Don’t you dare fucking stop, I will kill you,” is Jonny’s reply and Patrick picks up the pace, hadn’t realized he’d slowed, snaps his hips in even though he’s sensitive and empty and tired and needs to lie down to ride his wave.

Jonny comes almost immediately, spilling hot over Patrick’s hand with a long, perfect groan that will live in Patrick’s dreams for fucking ever. 

As soon as he’s certain he’s done, Patrick pulls out. Flops to his side across the dining seat and shivers, twitches a few times and tries to slow down his heartbeat, throws his arm over his eyes to hide whatever’s happening there. 

He hears Jonny move, flop on the other bench, and for a while it’s just them catching their breath. When Patrick finally feels together enough, he lets his arm drop, finds Jonny looking at him already.

Patrick couldn’t look away from him even if he wanted to. 

Outside, they can hear the voices of the tourists further away, but close too, Jonny’s neighbours back to their camper. 

“You should stay,” Jonny whispers, cracky. “They’ll be looking for who comes out of here.”

Patrick swallows, looks at the beige ceiling then back at Jonny under the table. “Better feed me then, bitch.”

Jonny smiles, wide and soft and open, and it tugs at Patrick in an uncomfortable way. He doesn’t move. Just stares at the empty space where Jonny was after he’s gotten up until he feels a gentle touch over his thigh and turns his head. 

“Just gonna,” Jonny says with a vague gesture to Patrick’s crotch and then he’s taking the condom off and Patrick squirms, sensitive there still but something else too. Something in how careful Jonny is about it, the intimacy of the gesture, long fingers tying it up quickly after. He turns around to throw it out and Patrick hears a couple cupboards banging, the water running, and then Jonny’s back with a wet washcloth for him. 

Patrick takes it, and sits up, starts cleaning himself. “You okay?” he says, normal in a way he absolutely doesn’t feel. 

Jonny snorts softly. “You’re not that big.”

“I remember hearing differently.”

“Yeah okay.” Jonny laughs, reappears in the seat in front of Patrick wearing sweats, and another pair for Patrick he slides over the tabletop. “I’m sore,” he adds. “It’s good. I—Yeah.” And Patrick has the idea that he’d be red across the nose again from this, if he wasn’t already red all over. 

Yeah. 

So good, Patrick’s already wanting it again. Muscles still shaky from how deep his orgasm was and he’s already wanting it again.

“Can I take a nap?” he asks, suddenly tired. Suddenly needing to close his eyes and not think about anything. Not even how perfect what they just did was.

“Sure, gonna take one too. You can have the other bed,” Jonny says with a tip of his head behind him where all his clothes are spread. “I’ll clear it. Won’t fit in the other bed without cuddling and not that I would hate that, but it’s too fucking warm.”

Patrick doesn’t question it. Doesn’t ask if the space is for his benefit or Jonny’s but he’s not hurt by it. Grateful, actually. And it _is_ too fucking warm in here, the air thicker now from their sweating, stinking of sex.

“Gonna use your bathroom,” he says, getting up and slipping into the sweats Jonny gave him. 

He sits in the closet space Jonny calls a bathroom and breathes deep. Presses a hand to his stomach, up his chest. Catches his face in the small mirror on the wall, all flushed with his hair still stuck to his forehead. 

“What are you doing?” he mouths more than whispers. He’s about to ask Jonny for that cuddle when he comes out, but stops when he spots the cleared bed, the wide expanse of it calling to him, and remembers that maybe Jonny needs some space too. 

“All yours,” Jonny says from the other side where he’s rearranging his own sheets.

“Thanks, man.” 

Patrick climbs in and, after a quick moment of hesitation, closes the little curtains that block the bed from view. He curls on his side over the covers, and falls asleep almost immediately.

*

The air is heavy and warm, so that he’s sweating a little, a sticky sheen over his back. He blinks slow into the thick orange light, still curled up in his little alcove, nose almost brushing the ugly-quaint floral curtains that hide him from the rest of the camper—body heavy, achy.

He flops on his back, arms to the side, blinks some more at the ceiling wondering what woke him up until he hears it again, the creaky sound of Jonny opening the lid of the grill right outside Patrick’s window. He thinks he hears a soft hiss between teeth, like someone was trying to be careful and failed at it, then a mumbled, “Shit,” that has him smiling—too big for the moment, a pull in his cheeks. He turns back on his front, pushes up and slow—careful not to shake the whole thing—to get closer to the thin wall, closer to the idiot outside, talking to himself.

And then he hears, “Your girl not coming out?” too loud and not careful at all—Jonny’s neighbour, probably. 

He tenses up, fully awake. Smile dropping in the pit of his stomach. 

Jess. 

The guy thinks Jonny was fucking Jess.

Patrick holds his breath. Presses his face hard into the pillow, fists tight into the top of the covers. Relents. Presses it again like he’d want to muffle a scream.

“She’s shy,” Jonny says, not whispered, easygoing. Doesn’t stop cleaning out the grill, and then, “and exhausted.”

Patrick laughs without meaning to, one big huff of air that’s punched out of him so suddenly it hurts. Gives Jonny the finger even if he can’t see it. 

“Nice,” the neighbour says, stretching it out like a douche, and Patrick can practically hear him raise his hand for a fistbump. Then, a shuffle of feet, a dumb laugh. A distant door opens and closes .

In the quiet that follows: “Asshole.”

Patrick rubs his face into the pillow, takes a deep breath and lets it out into the fabric, feels the air fan over his cheeks and nose. He flicks the wall twice, hard with his forefinger, the sound sharp and hollow, and listens to Jonny move closer, sees the shadow of his hand as it slaps the pop out wall of the bed two times in answer. 

His shirt is folded on top of the dining bench with his shorts and underwear and he frowns down at them for a long moment, thinking about Jonny handling them. Thinking about his hands on his soft dick, pulling the condom off. He puts the shirt on but keeps Jonny’s sweatpants. 

There’s a fish all prepped with lemon and onions and herbs on the counter, and Patrick’s sitting at the table when Jonny comes in for it.

“So I’m your girl, huh?” he says as soon as the door closes, not looking up. It comes out sharper than he meant to, something in his chest that wants out.

Jonny sighs, leans on the upper cupboards on his left. “If you’re into that,” he says, then raises his hands, palms out in surrender when Patrick glares at him. “He thought you were Jess. He’s seen her a few times over here. I didn’t think it was any of his business to correct him.”

For a quick second, he hates him. Hates that name in his mouth. Wants to get up and leave. The impulse is right there in his legs long enough for him to stand up fast and then, as quick as it came, it’s gone. Leaves him standing in the wake of it with nowhere to go. 

“Are you out?” he asks, leans back against the top of the bench.

“To him? No. In general? Yes.”

Patrick chews on his bottom lip. “Then why let him think—”

“ _You’re_ not. Out, I mean.”

The thoughtfulness makes him want to leave again and he looks at the door, reconsiders. “Not here, no.”

“Why not?”

Jonny shifts, pushes his hands into his pockets and Patrick watches the fabric of his pants, the stretch to accomodate, how it creates folds that snag weird at his groin. He taps a nail on the table, all shiny and clean. Thinks of Jonny wiping it clean of sweat and spunk while Patrick slept. 

“I wanna tell my family first.”

Voices rise in the distance, campers settling in for dinner, the smells of a dozen different grills wafting in. Jonny kicks his shin lightly with one bare foot. There’s wet grass sticking to his toes.

“Why haven’t you, yet?” he asks, only curious and not with the tone that made Patrick change therapists three times in two years. 

He sighs, crosses his arms, shrugs. “The way I was living in California, figuring my shit out it—It just didn’t feel—” He runs a hand over his face. “I wanted things to be like before, just for a little while.”

“I get that,” Jonny says, then points to the fish. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Great.” Another smile and he’s out again with the food.

Patrick sits back down at the table, picks up his phone, sets it down again—picks it up, sets it down. Gets up to get some plates instead. 

*

Before he leaves—after food and card games and both of them peeking out of the curtains and cursing out the neighbour for lingering—Jonny sucks his dick again. Makes it slow. Takes his time. Figures out quick how Patrick likes the head played with, rubbed wet and messy over his tongue, his lips. He grabs the lube and, after a questioning raised eyebrow and Patrick’s silent nod in reply, slicks a finger to slip inside, find Patrick’s prostate and make him come with that steady pressure. 

After he’s recovered enough, Patrick gives him a slicked handjob while they stand by the sink, kisses him through it—open and messy but deep, unhurried, until Jonny breaks the contact with a gasp, a screwed up look of furrowed brow and open mouth, and Patrick drops to his knees, has him come in his mouth to avoid the mess.

“Don’t swallow,” Jonny says, urgent with a tug on Patrick’s hair to get him back up. To kiss him some more and taste himself.

“Total wet dream,” Patrick whispers after, lips stuck to the corner of Jonny’s mouth, tongue dipping out to lick at some spill, Jonny meeting it with his own.

*

Jess’ door is open. He stops in the hallway, stares at the long stretch of light over the dark wood floor. Thinks of going back downstairs and watching TV until she goes to bed. He flattens a hand on the wall, spreads his fingers wide. Counts to ten. To twenty. 

She’s sitting in bed, legs crossed, book in her lap, empty snack plate beside her knee, with only her bedside lamp on, warm yellow over her shoulders, her knees, the grey carpet under her bed.

Her room hasn’t changed much since she was a teenager, left mostly as it was when she went to college and only refreshed when she came back, and Patrick’s hit with such a strong moment of déjà vu, like a movie montage of all the times he’s stood in this spot and watched her look up at him from whatever book she was reading—just like right now. She used to share this space with Erica, but Erica got older and their dad had the attic renovated and she moved there. Jess’ bed is in the same spot though. She’s just grown in that spot, always his reliable sister whether she was holding The Baby-Sitters Club, or Goosebumps, or Fear Street, or Harry Potter, or Twilight. 

He’s gonna move out soon, and she will too. Erica’s already moved out and Jackie will too eventually and he wonders what things his parents will store in here.

“You okay?” he asks, chest tight. It’s a little hard to breathe. She has dark circles under her eyes. Or maybe it’s just the light. Maybe he wants it to be the light.

“Okay,” she says with a little smile, a shrug.

Not even 12 hours ago he was pushing his dick inside her ex-boyfriend’s ass (the tight clench under his thumb while he rubbed lube over it). 

He steps in, sits on her bed.

(Pressing in slow, holding his ass open to watch it happen.)

He takes her hand.

(Jonny’s mouth on his, the hot, swoopy feeling left by his tongue against his.)

“I love you,” he says, squeezing her fingers.

She gives a little laugh, wet-sounding, blinks a few times with her head tilted back but the light reflects shiny over the water there. She takes a deep breath. It’s shaky, and he rubs his thumb against her knuckles.

“It’s fine,” she says. “I don’t know why it feels this way. It hadn’t gotten that serious yet and—I don’t know. I think my pride’s hurt. And like—” She pinches her lips together, frowns at herself.

“What?” Patrick asks, even though he doesn’t want to know. Has no right to know. 

“It’s dumb.” She shakes her head, scrunches up her nose the way she does when she doesn’t want to cry. “It just makes me feel like I’m… not enough I guess. He was super hot and nice and there was something, you know, about being liked by a guy like that. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t need that.”

Patrick doesn’t think it’s stupid.

(Jonny’s cock in his mouth while he kneels, looking up to see wide dark eyes staring at him, hands splayed over thick thighs, feeling the good tremor in them.) 

“You’re enough,” Patrick says, eyes fixed on their hands, throat tight. It tastes like a lie even though it’s not.

“I know.” She turns her hand in his, and he lets it go. “Just need to let the feelings run their course, I guess. But what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You gonna talk about California eventually?”

Patrick’s heart punches his ribcage, suckerpunches the air out of his lungs. “Soon,” he says, tries to hide the panic he feels. “I promise.”

“Okay.” She nods. Doesn’t push. She’s the most patient of his sisters and he suspects she’s the one who has kept Erica and Jackie off his case for so long. “I love you, too. I’m glad you’re home. It’s good to see you so often, especially right now.” 

She pokes his knee and Patrick laughs a humourless sound. His nose tickles, sure sign of oncoming tears, so he hugs her tight and wishes her goodnight, goes to his room.

(Jonny’s gentle touch on him, taking the condom off, the soft sweeping brush of a hand over his knee.)

*

He doesn’t stop it.

*

He sets the scene:

Tells Jonny to get on the bed on all fours, knees on the edge. Tells him to show him his ass while Patrick sits at the table with his cock in his hand to watch. Tells him to,

“Open yourself up,” throwing the lube on the mattress. 

“You want a show, eh?” Jonny replies, twists to the side so he can look back at Patrick, careful not to knock his head on the low ceiling. Reaches behind himself to spread a cheek open. How he manages to wax his ass while living in this place is a mystery, but he’s smooth, untanned and pale and pink at the center. So goddamn pretty Patrick feels it in his balls, in the soles of his feet.

They’re both a little tipsy, a little high, and Patrick fucking _giggles_ for no good goddamn reason, except that Jonny is hot and willing and Patrick can see how hard he is between the legs—red and embarrassed but hard for it all the same. 

“Looks to me you’re into it,” he says. And time dilates because the next thing he sees is Jonny’s wet fingers getting hooked inside his hole. A grip from behind—all hard forearm muscles and bouncing dick—and Patrick slides a finger along his slit to catch the sudden dripping there. 

“Looks to me _you're_ into it.” Smug little grin, but heavy eyelids fluttering in that way they do when he’s feeling good. He gives his hole a rough rub like it’s a clit or something, dips back inside with a moan. 

He’s shameless and shy about it, burning red, and Patrick gets up, says, “Wait,” and bangs his hip on the table in the process. Loses his footing, falls against a cupboard in the two, three steps—the eternity— it takes him to get to Jonny. But then he’s got hands on his cheeks to open him up, his mouth is there, knocking on fingers. Tip of his tongue a demanding push in that small space, wanting in.

Jonny groans loud, sharp in surprise, a caught muffled sound when he drops his hand, drops to the bed, gathers a pillow to bite into. 

His jaw, his whole tongue, hurts right away from how deep he tries to fuck in.

*

Was it this good with her?—is what he thinks once, thrusting up against Jonny, arm over his shoulders, mouth slack, stuck to his chin. Frottage has no right to feel this way. Not in a space like this, holding onto each other to stay upright.

Was it this good with her.

Jonny’s face is so close, all flushed and screwed up in concentration. He keeps kissing Patrick’s temple, the arch of his brow, as they move. 

Well—was it? 

Patrick turns away. Turns around in his arms and bends over the bed, stomach to the mattress. Lets him rut against his ass while he presses his face into the sheets.

* 

He doesn’t think about anything else but this.

He doesn’t think about anything else but him.

*

(A bit of an obsession)

*

It’s a sultry morning—sticky-hot by 9am and Patrick, already by the pool, has decided it’s going to be a day of nothing at all: chair to water to chair to water to fridge to TV to chair to water until dinner. 

He wishes Jonny could be here. 

He’d turn Patrick on his stomach on this very chair, tug his swimsuit down, and stick his dick in, shielding him from the sun while he fucks his ass. Then they could make out in the pool to rinse off.

He might even risk it if not for the fact that his sisters are all supposed to come back at one point and he’s not sure when—family dinner planned with some visiting cousins and his grandparents. 

He’s thinking that maybe he can sneak off to the camper for a quick beej when his phone chimes with a new text. 

_Leaving the camper for the cottage today_ , it says. Come by in the evening whenever you want

_You got a bed?_ , Patrick texts back.

_I got a mattress_

They don’t do sexting, he doesn’t know why, but Patrick sends, _I will if you put me on my back and fuck me,_ all the same.

His leg bounces up and down for the five seconds it takes for him to receive, _Deal_ , and then heat rushes through him so fast he practically rolls off the chair and into the cool water of the pool. 

*

The cottage is quaint as fuck. It’s the type found all over Patrick’s town—coastal in vibe even if it’s more inland. It has greyed cedar shingles and wood trims painted white, a small sunroom to the side and, when Patrick takes a peek from the driveway, a small backyard fenced in by tall hedges. 

The path to the front door is made of large flat stones and the grass out front is damaged from what he assumes is saw benches and other tools, but there are still flowers and plants in the flowerbeds—half full of weeds, half cleared out. The front door is clearly new, shiny and unblemished, thin plastic sticking to the windows still needing to be removed.

The door opens almost immediately when he knocks, and Patrick’s hit with a wave of fresh paint smell. Jonny’s there in loose paint-splattered jeans and shirt, some of it on his forearms, his face, the side of his nose.

“You can’t text a guy that and then make him wait two days,” is what he says by way of greeting. 

Patrick smiles, takes a deliberate up-and-down look at him. “Sorry, family stuff.”

It’s not even a lie but he can’t say that Jonny’s eagerness doesn’t please him. That there isn’t something about clearly being wanted as much as he wants him. 

Jonny grabs the top of the doorway with both hands and leans forward a little, makes himself look good in a way that’s one hundred percent deliberate, bicep bulging, shirt hiked up enough to see a smooth strip of abs. 

“How long’s it been?” he whispers, and Patrick knows what he’s talking about immediately. Has been thinking about it ever since that morning. Had almost decided to leave in the night for a quick fuck instead of making himself wait just so he could have this. Him.

He edges closer. “You mean, besides my own hand and… other things?” he says, lets himself feel the intense swoop of heat in his belly when he says it, watches the way it hits Jonny with the same, before adding, “Few weeks. That night you helped me change my flat tire.”

“Fuck,” Jonny gasps. “You—”

Patrick hums. “Hadn’t even showered, my ass was still kinda wet. Thought about you taking me against my car.”

Jonny gets red across the cheeks right away, a furious color that’s almost as hot as him saying, “You better come in before I just take you against this doorway.”

“I think you’d like that, but I was promised a mattress.”

“Get the fuck in, Patrick,” Jonny says, moving as he does, and then adds, “Careful the walls are freshly painted.”

Jonny was clearly at work in the small entryway, paintbrushes and rollers and pans all piled in a corner behind the door, plastic on the floor, and Patrick almost makes a serial killer joke but bites it off.

The cottage is empty. No furniture anywhere except for the appliances in the kitchen at the back and a couple of lamps on the floor. New floors, or at least refurbished, from the shine. Some of the walls aren’t plastered yet, most of it isn’t painted.

“Where’s your stuff?” he asks, stepping into the space he assumes is the living room.

Jonny’s shirt is already over his head, tossed to the side in the same fluid move. “Can we talk about it after I’ve fucked you?” he says, hands on his belt. “I’ve been thinking about it for two days. Stopped plastering twice just to jerk off.”

Patrick kicks off his shoes but stops there, opens his arms wide. “I don’t see any mattresses.”

“Upstairs,” Jonny says and points to the ceiling. “Last door. I’ll be there in a sec, just need to get rid of this paint real quick.”

“Okay.”

He doesn’t move. Jonny doesn’t move. It’s funny. Real fucking funny how often they get stuck like this. Looking. Staring. Just a slight shift in what Patrick’s been doing since the moment he met him. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for the wide empty space to feel like it’s not so empty anymore, like it’s shrunk around them into this bubble that’s just their bodies and their breaths and this heat building pressure in the space where they’re not touching. Everything gets thicker: the air, the anticipation of what’s to come. The tongue in his mouth, the want in his chest. His dick.

He has the vague thought, far at the back of his mind, wonders how long they could make this last. Instead, he swallows, says, “You’re in the way,” and watches Jonny blink the moment off too. Watches him grin and dash off to a room hidden behind a curtain that he assumes is a bathroom. Patrick curls his toes against Jonny’s new floors.

He makes his way up the bare wood stairs, follows the warm glow of a lamp to the bedroom at the end of the small hallway. The promised queen mattress is in the middle of the room with a lamp on the floor beside it and a couple of paperback novels. Nothing else there except for plastic on the floor around the edges and green painter's tape along the trimmings.

“Wow,” he says, loud enough for Jonny to hear him from downstairs. “It’s got a boxspring and everything!” He doesn’t hear a reply, but laughs to himself, drops his bag beside the bed, then his shirt, his pants, the rest of his clothes. Digs around for the lube and tosses it over the hastily pulled-up sheets and comforter.

He settles himself in the middle, grabs the lube, and starts getting ready.

He’s just pushed a second finger inside himself when he catches movement from the corner of his eye, hears the shuffling of feet and then a, “Holy shit,” satisfyingly choked out.

Patrick tosses his head back, closes his eyes, says, “You’ve got no curtains, I fucking hope I’m not giving your neighbours a show.”

“Window faces the backyard,” Jonny says coming closer, Patrick following the sound of his feet. “Just a hedge and some trees”

“Lucky trees,” Patrick says, rolls up his hips and presses in more.

The mattress dips and there’s a hand cupped over Patrick’s knee, a finger by his. He slits his eyes open, takes a peek at Jonny.

“Wanted to do that,” Jonny says softly, pressing in, makes Patrick shiver, good and relaxed.

He drags his fingers out of himself and puts both his hands behind his head, flexes a little. “Be my guest,” he says, lets his bent knees fall open a little more. Something nice to look at.

Jonny scoots forward in between his legs, naked and frankly fucking glorious in the warm low light of the lamp, shadows along his muscles, hair all spiked out like he ran wet hands into it. His cock is heavy between his legs, bounces with the shift of his body and Patrick drinks in the sight of him, lets it settle into him in a lazy, warm spread.

It’s slower than usual already. Not careful or tender, just slower. Sweet. Like the moment’s been dipped in honey. 

There’s a second finger inside him, more lube, and they get in deeper when Jonny leans forward and over him, hand beside Patrick’s head until he’s low enough to kiss him. 

He tastes vaguely minty and warm, and Patrick sinks into it immediately, all focus on the press of his lips, the slip of his tongue against his. He barely notices when Jonny starts moving his hand until he’s curling up and glancing his prostate, lighting up Patrick’s spine.

He gasps, breaks the kiss and throws his head back with a moan, a deep-boned shiver. Jonny kisses his neck instead. 

There’s a part of Patrick that thought Jonny might be bossy in bed, might like to be in control. He’s sure not shy about saying what he wants, asking for it, even though he blushes through it, but he’s also just… willing. Goes where Patrick wants him to go without much resistance at all unless he’s enjoying what’s already happening or he thinks Patrick’s about to tap out before making sure Jonny’s come hard and good. 

So Patrick doesn’t even have to ask when he wants Jonny to pay attention to something, just pushes and prods and Jonny lets himself be moved until his mouth is above Patrick’s nipple and he’s sticking his tongue out for Patrick to arch up, catch himself against it. 

“They’re really sensitive,” Patrick breathes out, bits his lower lip hard. There’s just so much they haven’t done yet. So much Jonny doesn’t know about Patrick’s body. So much Patrick doesn’t know about his. 

Patrick wants to show him everything. 

Jonny gives him a quick crooked smile, locks eyes with him and flicks his tongue, catches him quick, a tease, and laughs with his mouth to Patrick’s skin when Patrick glares at him. He has laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, all bright, all delight. 

“How sensitive,” Jonny whispers, kisses everywhere except where Patrick wants him. “Could you come just from that?”

Patrick shakes his head. “Hasn’t happened, but it’s been close. Add another finger.”

Jonny does, quickly but unhurried. He’s got such nice hands. They always catch Patrick’s eyes, make him look where they go, how they touch. 

When Jonny gives his nipple a first real hard suck, Patrick shouts, arches into the mouthful. Twists a little to the side when Jonny bites, edge of his teeth catching along the hard peak when he does, and Patrick whimpers, shakes when the sting is soothed by the flat of Jonny’s tongue.

“Fuck,” he says. “You weren’t kidding.”

Patrick laughs, gets fully on his back, stretches under him with his arms to the side. He gets his feet flat on Jonny’s thighs, tips his hips up. He’s not good at lying, Jonny. Not when they’ve reached this point anyway. Everything on his face as he watches Patrick move, naked want and wonder and focus.

“You should get in me,” he tells Jonny with a brush of his fingertips to his cheek.

Jonny goes looking for a tossed condom to the side with a hand, rubs at Patrick’s other nipple with his thumb, makes him twitch with it, in a way that makes Patrick smile, makes him feel electrified to the core of his bones.

“Let me,” he says, and rolls the condom onto Jonny’s dick—feels the silkiness of it as he does.

He’s never fucked anyone bare. Never been fucked bare either. Never been with anyone long enough or monogamously enough to be able to, paranoid as fuck about STIs to want to chance it. But there’s a quick moment there where he considers it. Where he thinks this dick— _this_ dick—would be the smoothest thing to ever fill him and it’d be a shame not to feel that. Thinks about throwing the condom and telling Jonny to do him without it. 

Patrick’s so close like this, Jonny tips his head sideways, kisses Patrick’s neck while he’s busy getting him ready. Busy having a bad idea. 

He flops back to the bed when he’s done, gets himself as far away from temptation as possible before he does something he regrets, and opens his legs, kicks Jonny lightly with the side of his foot. “Okay, now fuck me.”

Jonny gives a little high laugh, nose all scrunched up, and it would be nice. It would be so nice to let him come in his ass. To feel him seep out of him. It would be nice to flip him over after maybe, get _his_ dick and _his_ nut inside him too. 

He’s never eaten it out of someone’s ass before. 

And it hits him, then, as Jonny’s rolling in, spreading Patrick to get him good inside, that this is the most fucking he’s ever done with just one guy. Practically every day and they’ve barely started, and Patrick’s not even close to being full of him. Sick of him. Absolutely tired of him. 

What the fuck.

“Come here,” he gasps, groans when Jonny fucks in again. “Kiss me.”

It’s better, surer now, this way. Jonny above him and his mouth on his and his dick filling him up, getting him right. Better when he wraps his legs around him and forces him to rut and grind more than thrust, and Patrick’s got his tongue in his mouth and his hands in his hair. Better, still, when Jonny snakes a hand between their bodies and wraps those long fingers of his around Patrick’s cock, a sweet counterpoint that zings hot inside Patrick’s veins, settles low in his belly where he already feels his orgasm building.

“Been wanting this,” Jonny mumbles against his mouth.

“Me too,” Patrick says, presses it inside Jonny’s mouth with his tongue.

How many fucking times have they said this? 

The mattress has shifted with Jonny’s movements, a dip at the head where it’s slid off the boxspring, and it makes Patrick hold on to Jonny’s shoulders, lift himself up.

“Don’t stop,” he pants wet in his ear, and Jonny doesn’t. Hitches him more in his lap with an arm around his lower back and lets him get himself off this way instead. Holds him while Patrick fucks himself on his cock, uses the upward motion to get himself some needed friction into Jonny’s tight fist. 

Jonny’s face is pressed in the crook of Patrick’s neck, lips catching there in messy wet kisses, in muffled moans. Short whines that seem to embarrass Jonny since he’s unwilling to pull back, pushing his face harder there Patrick thinks he can feel the heat of his skin, the violence of his blush. But he doesn’t stop, and when Patrick clamps a hand at the back of his head, Jonny gets it immediately, sucks at the skin hard enough to leave a mark.

He bites hard on Jonny’s shoulder when he comes. Spills between their bodies, over Jonny’s fist, and leans his forehead over the mark he’s left into Jonny’s skin. Watches Jonny’s hand wring him empty.

“You’re gonna have to take over, buddy,” he pants, tired. His thighs are burning. 

Jonny shifts them until he’s on his back and Patrick’s just a heavy weight on his chest. His neck and upper shoulders are over the edge, but he plants his feet on the bed and fucks up hard. Holds Patrick’s loose body close to him and takes what he needs and Patrick loves it, moans loud at the oversensitivity and licks a long stripe along Jonny’s neck to the underside of his chin when he comes.

He’s still shaking through it, when Patrick rolls to the side without looking and promptly falls on the floor with a bang.

He laughs. “Ow, fuck.” It’s cold as fuck.

“You okay?” Jonny asks, breathless, but the fucker doesn’t make a move to help. 

“Your floor’s really hard,” Patrick replies, dumbly, little breathy laughs in between the words. He looks at the ceiling, the soft shadows. Catches his breath. His ass is sore and he reaches a hand between his legs, touches the rim of his hole and hisses between his teeth. 

Jonny’s face appears at the edge of the mattress. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, line between his brows. The light is behind him so he’s all concerned shadows.

Patrick shakes his head, reaches out with a heavy hand to touch that line. “No.” His voice is low, cracky. He smooths a thumb between Jonny’s eyes, watches them flutter closed. “No, you’re good.”

*

He takes his time in the bathroom. The room is mostly finished except for the counter, which is only a board of plywood at the moment, and for the tiles around the shower. He runs his hands under cold water and drags them through his hair. Cleans his dick, his ass. 

There’s no light fixture yet, just a bunch of wires coming out of a hole in the ceiling, so Jonny’s plugged another lamp into one of the outlets. It sits on the counter and creates long shadows over Patrick’s naked body. He peers at himself in the mirror, leans in to get a closer look, make sure the dark circles under his eyes are from the weird lighting. He’s not one of those gym rats who can’t stop looking at their own bodies, but he does workout, he does look good. 

He trails a hand over his pecs, his abs, between his legs where he cups himself. Grimaces in the mirror, something silly—a twist of his mouth that makes him look dangerous in the light, with his hair slicked back, too long maybe, but that he can’t be bothered to cut. 

“You want a piece of this,” he whispers at his reflection, low and gritty, swings his hips and jiggles his junk, and then cracks up, still a little high on the good dicking he just got. 

He doesn’t want to go home.

Back in the bedroom, Jonny’s fixed the bed to its original position and with a new contour sheet, the old left crumpled on the floor by the door. He’s fluffing the pillows, hitting them with the flat of his hands, back to wearing his little underwear that Patrick is coming to think of as his true uniform, not the paint-splattered jeans and the tool belt. 

“Hey,” he says, naked in the doorway. “Can I stay here tonight?”

Jonny comes to a sudden halt, looks up at him. There’s only one bed in this house so Patrick knows what he’s asking. Knows that Jonny knows what he’s asking. 

And he has a short second to think that this is it, this is where it stops—some line drawn at a certain type of intimacy that doesn’t involve orgasms, when Jonny says, “Sure,” with a soft smile.

The sheets are cool, emptied of all the heat they put into them earlier, and Patrick settles on his side at the edge of the mattress, enough space to watch Jonny’s profile. 

“Go to sleep,” Jonny says, soft, without turning his head, without closing his eyes. But he slides a foot across the small gulf between their bodies and presses against Patrick’s.

Patrick falls asleep first.

*

He wakes up alone.

He’s kinda sad that he’s waking up alone.

He’s annoyed that he’s kinda sad at waking up alone.

Outside, it’s raining. Water hits the windowpane hard, sluicing along it so that the glass looks distorted, and it takes him a moment to realize that’s the sound that woke him up. The room is flat and grey, cold-feeling. He was supposed to go to the beach with Jackie today, but he guesses that’s a bust. 

_Dude, where are you?_ , is in his phone when he checks. 

_Slept out,_ he types back. _No beach today anyway._

_Lol do I know her?_

Patrick turns his face into the pillow, takes a deep breath. _No_ , he replies.

He throws the covers over his head and stays in the pocket of warmth until his stomach grumbles. He almost trips over the dirty sheet on the floor on his way out.

The kitchen seems to be the only room nearly finished on the ground floor, everything done except for the cupboard doors needing to be attached. Patrick spots them stacked in a corner. Jonny’s still in his underwear but threw a shirt on, not nearly long enough to cover his ass, and Patrick leans his forearms on the counter, takes a good long look. 

“You hungry?” Jonny asks, flipping the eggs he’s got in the pan. 

Patrick hums. “You’re always feeding me,” he says thinking he’s gonna follow that up with some sort of promise of reciprocity but realizes he can’t. Even the thought of going back to Maddie’s feels wrong now. Even if they don’t _look_ like they’ve been fucking, Patrick knows. He knows what they’ve been doing and it sets his teeth on edge to think about taking that outside—of Jonny’s camper, of Jonny’s cottage. Of the both of them.

“I don’t mind.” Jonny flashes a smile his way. He still got a sheet line over his left cheek, and a case of bed head that echoes hot inside Patrick’s belly. 

“We eating standing at the counter?” he says, turning to look pointedly at the emptiness behind him. His voice even resonates a little. 

“There’s a little table and some chairs in the sunroom,” Jonny says as he grabs two plates from the cupboard behind him. He is barefoot and he’s making Patrick breakfast. “I like eating there in the morning since it faces east. My grandma used to always serve breakfast there when we visited. We’d be brats, pretend the light was too bright, being noisy as fuck.” He stops with both hands in the cutlery drawer, a freeze-frame of a moment like someone pushed paused on him, and then he inhales suddenly, closes the drawer with his hip. “Until one morning she had sunglasses waiting for us on the table. Those cheap ones they sell for tourists. Not gonna be a problem today, though.”

“We?”

“Me and my little brother. David.”

I didn’t know you had a brother, he’s about to say but stops. Pinches his lips together and bends over the counter until his stomach almost touches it. “Feed meeeeee,” he whines instead, lips quirking against the granite when Jonny laughs.

In the sunroom, the light is sad and heavy. The weather drags on Patrick’s mood. He should be going home after this, maybe see if he can help his mom with something, or look some more at the manuals his dad gave him to prepare for his new job. 

The table is one of those old folding ones with a dollar store plastic tablecloth over it. They sit on old metal folding chairs. The only furniture in this cottage beside the bed and a ridiculous amount of lamps. He sits across from Jonny and the table is small enough he can feel it when Jonny moves even though he doesn’t quite touch him, the displaced air brushing over his skin. He’s sitting across from him eating fried eggs and toast and he just wants to—stay. 

“Hey, can I stick around today?” he asks, watching some yolk catch at the corner of Jonny’s mouth and then his tongue dart out to lick it. “Unless you got people coming over, I guess.”

“No,” Jonny says. “Everything left to do I can pretty much do myself. And sure. Not much to do here unless you know how to plaster walls.”

“I don’t.”

“There’s not much else.”

Patrick shrugs, pushes a piece of egg across his plate with his fork before spearing and eating it. “Don’t care. I got a phone. You have WiFi and a couple books. And a bed.” 

He hooks his foot around Jonny’s calve to make his point, feels the soft hairs there, and Jonny raises an eyebrow at him, purses his lips in a ‘Oh I see’ expression that has Patrick smiling innocently at him. 

“If you don’t mind,” Jonny says. “I can have lunch with you. And you know…” And there it is, the faint bloom of red over his nose. 

“And you know,” Patrick repeats with a laugh, a little mocking shake of his head that he smooths out with a slide of his foot up, along Jonny’s thigh.

He wasn’t asking to stay with more sex in mind, though it’s never quite not on the table as far as he’s concerned. Mainly, he was looking for a reason to not go home. Not yet. But he doesn’t correct the assumption if it was an assumption. Won’t qualify the offer by somehow protecting his honor. He’s easy to please, easy to spread for dick, especially with the man in front of him. 

It’s wet and cold outside and Jonny is a solid, warm, soft mass of a man that Patrick wants to feel over him all the time. 

All the fucking time.

“Can we—?” he starts before he can stop himself, sudden idea flashing in his head, desire as quick to settle low in his belly. He shakes his head.

“What?” Jonny asks, wraps a hand around Patrick’s foot, still hanging out by his thigh, and gives it a squeeze, digs his thumb into the arch of it like a massage.

“Nevermind.” Patrick bites his lip. “Not something we can get done over lunchtime.”

“Tell me anyway.” Jonny’s eyes are a little wide when they find Patrick’s and hold them, his hand a strong grip on Patrick’s foot. 

It’s something in the sound of it, almost breathless, that really gets to him. Eager. Like he’s as curious to hear about all the nasty shit Patrick’s dreamed about as Patrick is to know that he’s thought of it too. Wonders if Jonny’s been thinking about asking. Wonders if he could take him to bed and lay beside him and whisper all of it in his ear until Jonny’s hard and aching.

He looks out the window at the waterfalls of rain over the sides of the sunroom. “I wanna milk you dry,” he says, heart beating—the sound of the rain loud, but his words louder somehow, like there’s no other noise at all. “Wanna get my fingers in you and fuck up your prostate until you come.” He meets Jonny’s eyes, certain he’s holding his breath. “That’s what I was thinking about that day, at the barbeque. When you saw me that first time. That’s what I wanted to do to you.” He licks his lips, curls his toes in Jonny’s grip until he brushes the hardness between his thighs. “Let me,” he asks. “I’ll make it good, I promise.”

The silence is heavy. Jonny’s mouth is parted, his gaze fixed on Patrick’s, and he doesn’t say anything, only switches his grip and scoots forward into his chair to press his erection against the sole of Patrick’s foot. Rolls his hips to make him feel it.

“You fucker—” he starts, licks his lips and presses in harder. “God, you—Always do—I don’t get how—” 

Patrick’s heart is running like this is a race, and he clenches his hand on the edge of the table, knuckles white, drags his heel up and watches Jonny shiver. Watches his head give up and hang on his neck, his body curl over the table with a groan.

And then he’s gone. Lets go of Patrick’s foot and pushes his chair back fast, loud, until they’re not touching anymore. 

“Stick around for dinner and I’ll let you,” he says, a little broken. “But now you should get out of my face.”

Patrick laughs, a snap of happiness and delight that cuts through all the tension. Jonny with his own smile in reply, middle finger raised and obvious hard dick between his legs.

“Fuck off,” he says. “I really fucking need to work.”

Patrick wolfs down his last egg and gives him a little salute, saunters off while making sure Jonny gets a good look at his ass, says, “You know where to find me,” and goes back upstairs, back to the bed. 

The wall facing the window doesn’t look painted but he runs his hand over it to make sure it’s dry before pushing the bed flush against it, piling on the pillows to lean against. 

He spends the morning on his phone, then picks up one of Jonny’s paperbacks (“Just One Look”). It gets so dark at one point, rain battering the window, that he turns on the light, turns on his side to read. 

The pillow kinda smells like Jonny.

He shoves it harder under his cheek and neck, settles deeper into the bed for some comfort. 

At lunch, Jonny brings up sandwiches but sucks Patrick off first. Leaves the plates on the floor and crawls over the bed, tugs Patrick’s sweats just below his balls and puts his lips on his soft dick, lets it thicken in his mouth.

It’s slow, careful, and Patrick sinks into it. Into the pillows at his back, eyes closed. Into the feeling of Jonny’s lips, warm and tight, his hands a steady press on Patrick’s thighs. The only sounds are the rain, Jonny’s breathing, the soppy wetness of his mouth and his own heart, pounding hard in his ears.

When he offers the same, after, an obvious look at the bulge in Jonny’s pants, Jonny shakes his head, adjusts himself.

“Making it last until tonight,” he says, and dips his head. Patrick’s dick, still out and softening, gives a little twitch, makes him grab it, makes him press his fingers against his balls.

“You’re killing me,” he says with a groan and a dramatic flop against the pillows.

They sit on the floor to eat and when Jonny goes back to work, Patrick crawls under the covers for a nap.

It’s nice here, he thinks on the verge of sleep. Quiet, calm. Perfect cocksucking.

*

The rain stopped while he slept. 

The sun is weak, filtered through a thin layer of clouds but seems bright after the thick greyness of earlier. When he looks out the bedroom window, the grass and tree leaves, the hedges, glitter with raindrops, a thick luscious green. 

The door of the little shed at the back is open and Patrick catches movement through one of the windows before the doorway is filled with a giant ass. He laughs once, loud, watches Jonny drag a few boxes backwards out of the shed like he doesn’t have the arms to lift them, endearing and dorky in his bent waddle.

Patrick clutches the edge of the window and leans in until his nose is touching the glass and his breath fogs the image. 

The patio door’s in the kitchen and he grabs a piece of apple left on the cutting board on his way out. Pops it into his mouth and walks barefoot over the small wooden deck, down some stairs and along the rocky path to the shed. The hem of his sweats is immediately wet and he stops to roll them up to mid-calf.

He takes a peek inside the shed. It’s deeper than it looked from the upstairs window and he thinks he can see some gardening tools along one of the walls, but most of the space is filled with boxes, and smells like it too--cardboard, dust, and wet wood.

Jonny’s sitting on a box with another one open at his feet, photo albums on the floor beside it and one opened in his lap. He’s so absorbed in what he’s looking at it doesn’t look like he’s heard Patrick approach.

He raps his knuckle lightly against the door in an effort to not startle him and says, “What’s up?” with a smile when Jonny looks up. It’s hard to tell in the warm gloom of the shed and the window at his back, but Jonny’s eyes look wet and red-rimmed. He smiles back, though, something soft and pleased.

“Hey,” he says, then lifts the album in his lap like he wants Patrick to see the title. “Got a call from my mom asking if I could find some of the albums my grandma had. I knew I’d packed them somewhere in here.”

He turns one of the pages slowly, smiles down at it. It creaks around the metal rings, old plastic whining.

“This your grandparents stuff?” 

Jonny nods, peels back the sticky plastic from the page and picks one of the pictures out, sets it on another box with others. “Packed it all up when I decided to renovate the place. Most of the furniture is in storage right now. Didn’t want to get rid of anything before going through it all properly, and before my folks had a chance to either. Think I’ll bring these back to Canada with me though.”

Patrick sticks his hands in his pockets, shifts his weight onto the front of his feet, then back onto his heels. He looks back at the house, then at Jonny again, at the tightness there in his face now that the smile’s gone.

“Please tell me we haven’t been fucking on your grandparents’ bed,” he tries for levity.

Jonny’s mouth ticks at the corner in that way it has. Patrick’s starting to know that tick as what happens when he’s trying not to smile and, yes, here comes the eyeroll.

“No. That’s new.”

He gets another eyeroll, but a bigger tick of lips when he puts his hand on his chest with a ‘Phew’ of relief. 

“You gonna use some of their stuff in the cottage or sell it or…”

“All of the above. Gonna keep some for the cottage and see what my family wants to keep too, sell or donate the rest.” He peels the plastic on another page, takes out another photo.

Patrick takes a step inside without thinking, then retreats back to the doorway. “What are those?” 

Jonny hands over the picture. It’s a bit yellowed. It gives the feeling of an old memory, and Patrick guesses that’s what it is: two young boys with orange floaters on their arms with an older man and older woman, already greying. It was taken at the beach here, Patrick recognizes the pier behind them. The oldest of the two boys has the darkest eyes Patrick’s ever seen and a pissy look on his face that makes him smile.

“You haven’t changed,” he says, handing the picture back.

Jonny’s careful with it, tips of his fingers only right on the edge, and looks down at it with a fond, sad line along his mouth and eyes. It gives the impression of an iceberg—a small peep at something much bigger, vaster. 

Patrick looks back at the house again, at the bedroom window without drapes, but Jonny’s voice drags him back when he says,

“I remember that day,” with something in it like love, like sadness. “I was annoyed because mom made me give my last twizzlers to David even though I had bought the pack myself with quarters my dad had given me for chores. I stomped around and sulked all day.” He places the photo with the others, continues going through the album. “That night my grandpa was watching a movie in the sunroom—there used to be an old couch there and a tv—and he let me sit beside him. He’d made this huge bowl of popcorn for himself and he let me have some. Do you know what he said?”

“What?”

“He said that sometimes things are better when they’re shared.” Jonny snorts, presses his lips together. “I said that’s bullshit.”

Patrick laughs, unexpected, and Jonny grins too, closes the album and picks up another one.

“He laughed too,” he says. “Didn’t punish me for my language.”

It’s fucking weird—weird and unpleasant—to be suddenly struck in the heart with the realization that the guy he’s been fucking for weeks is, like, a human beyond that. Beyond his cock and his ass and his thighs and his mouth and everything else that makes Patrick feel good and out of his mind horny. 

Has a life beyond Patrick. 

Beyond _them._

He knew. Of course he knew. But it’s never been… relevant. Never been something that came into what they do. Never been something that Patrick’s thought much about—not with Jonny, not with any other guys he’s fucked around with, but it’s—Weird.

The guilt is weird. 

The house behind him is very inviting and the shed is small and stuffy and he thinks he should maybe go back inside, take another nap. Wait until Jonny’s ready to fuck, something Patrick knows how to do because he’s never asked about this. Never asked when Jonny inherited this place. When his grandparents died. How it feels to be here. Never asked about his brother, what his parents do, how Jonny got into the construction business, where he learned to drywall. Do they teach drywalling at McGill university? Who was his first boyfriend? When did he lose his virginity? 

He should—leave. Should— 

“I’m sorry, man,” he says, shifts from one foot to the other, tense energy all bunched up in his legs. “It must be rough.”

Jonny inhales loudly through his nose, rolls his shoulders while blowing it out through his mouth. “Yeah. Sometimes. I don’t know. One moment I’m fine, the other I remember something and it’s, you know, happy and all but then—” He shrugs.

Behind Patrick, the light shifts, darkens. He scuffs the floor of the shed with his big toe, then stops, worried he’ll get a splinter.

“I didn’t know.”

“Why would you?” Jonny drops the album on top of the others. His eyes still look a little wet, confirmed by how he briefly digs the heel of his hand against his left one, but there’s no anger in his words, no blame. That’s all from Patrick. “I’ve never said, either. We don’t—You don’t really know me.” He twists his mouth and widens his eyes in a self-deprecating grimace, then laughs softly. “Well. Not like that anyway. And that’s fine. I’ve also never asked. About you. Everything I know about your family, Jess told me. But it’s not—”

He makes a complicated gesture with his hands that Patrick doesn’t know how to interpret. Doesn’t know if he stopped because he wasn't sure how to finish or because dropping his sister’s name when they’re together like this is something neither of them needs, like a rock thrown at the fragile walls of their glass house.

_You don’t really know me_

Well. Yeah. He doesn’t. 

He doesn’t.

He stretches out his fingers in his pockets from the fists they had become and clears his throat. Tries to make his voice normal. “You need some help?” 

“I still need to look through some of these, but—” Jonny looks around him, anywhere but Patrick. “You can bring the two boxes outside into the cottage.”

“Sure thing.”

*

After dinner, Patrick takes his time. It’s hard to tell what makes him do so. He’s been thinking of this thing for weeks—dreaming about it, jerking off to it. And it’s more than just wanting to make themselves last, a contradictory feeling about it—an urgency in his body to go slow.

He presses Jonny into the mattress with kisses and takes his clothes off. Undresses him one piece at a time, even his socks, Jonny silent as he does but fixed on him, their eyes meeting occasionally.

Once he’s naked, Patrick drags his lips down his body, stops to suck at his nipples, dips his tongue into his belly button and laughs when Jonny sucks in his stomach, tickled. He smells good. Even after a day of work and only a quick shower. It makes Patrick linger there, nose smushed into his stomach, shivery inside when Jonny drags his fingers through his hair and tucks a stray curl behind his ear. 

He doesn’t know that he’s ever taken this kind of time down between the legs of a man without putting his mouth on his cock. But that’s what he does. Mouths along the soft skin at the edge of Jonny’s shorn pubes. Sucks gently at the space where thigh meets groin, Jonny’s dick a fast hardening weight against his cheek, his ear. In any other circumstances, he’d be happy to stay here without more than just this, the overwhelming scent of his skin in his nose and the soft involuntary rolling of his body. 

That stays true only to the second where Jonny closes his thighs over his head. Patrick doesn’t know if it’s just something he does without thinking because of the teasing Patrick’s been laying on him, or if he picked up on how much Patrick had loved that, that first time. Whatever it is, it jolts Patrick awake from his contemplation of Jonny’s inner thigh, and pulls a long moan out of him that he muffles there. And then he’s up, taking a loud breath in.

“You gonna get to it or…” Jonny says, bitchy in tone but with something playful in his eyes, almost smug. Jonny’s dick is fully hard by now. More than that, even, head dark and and wet at the slit.

“Can’t pretend you weren't enjoying it,” Patrick says with a significant look at Jonny’s betrayer.

“Fucking touch me, Patrick.” 

“I _was_ touching you,” Patrick says, and laughs when Jonny kicks him with the side of his foot.

Still, he doesn’t move for Jonny’s dick right away. Just applies some pressure with his fingertips to the inside of his thighs and spreads him open a little more, takes a good look at him, at his pretty _pretty_ cock, and watches it bounce once under his gaze, watches the telltale blooming of more wet at the tip. 

“Could you come untouched?” he asks, flits his eyes up to Jonny’s face to catch some kind of answer in the slack of his mouth, the sweatiness of his forehead.

“Patrick.”

“No, seriously. Would—”

“Patrick!” Jonny’s eyes are very dark and he’s very beautiful. Patrick can barely look at him. “I’ve been thinking about this all day. _Please_.”

Resignation settles in his stomach even though he was always gonna do it. Always wanted to do it. Since that day in the guest bedroom and probably before. It feels like such a long time ago. 

Patrick spits on his palm and takes Jonny’s cock in hand. Dips back in to rub the head of it over his lips. Makes them soft, pliable for it, adding more spit to the wet there with lazy passes and occasional flicks of the tongue. It dribbles along the length, onto his fingers. He almost gets stuck there, almost misses the tell—the rapid lifting of Jonny’s hips, the twist of his body, the unconscious opening and closing of his legs—until Jonny grabs his hair and stops him. 

“Don’t wanna come yet,” he says, breathless and cracky.

“You know.” Patrick says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and reaching out for the lube. “You keep saying these things like I’m supposed to not want to fuck you raw right after.” He squirts some slick onto his fingers, watches his words hit red over Jonny’s face, his neck. “And this,” he says, reaching out to touch the heat of Jonny’s flush over his collarbones. “Like it’s not fucking adorable.”

It’s true. It’s a favorite thing. There’s a half second where he thinks his honesty will land wrong. But then Jonny snorts, gives him the finger and drops his head back to the bed. Patrick doesn’t miss the smile he tries to hide quick by pinching his lips together.

Three fingers. He’s gonna get Jonny there with three fingers, but not all at once like he’s thought about. Build it up like:

One finger— 

He doesn’t spend too much time teasing him, only smears some wet over his hole before slipping in.

It blows him away a little that even just this and Jonny’s arching his back, a content moan on his lips, his knees falling open. 

“Christ, you love this.” Patrick hears the awe in his own voice, the catch of something else too that he burrows into Jonny’s skin, in the drag of his teeth over his knee.

“All. Fucking. Day,” is Jonny’s reply.

“Yeah, I know babe, I’m sorry.”

Jonny moans, fists tight in the covers beside him and moves around Patrick’s finger like he’s looking for the right angle to— 

“Get it, Patrick. Come on.”

It’s easy to do so, to give into his demanding sweetness. To flatten his other hand just above his cock to keep him still and to curl up inside him until he finds the right spot. Jonny’s noisy exhale sounds like relief. 

He keeps it light. Small careful glances like caresses that make Jonny twitch on each pass. He’s breathing like he’s working out, and Patrick can tell he’s trying to control himself. He taps twice and Jonny’s foot lifts off the bed as he gives a little shout, clenches his teeth together around it.

“Touch yourself, Jon,” Patrick says, but Jonny rolls his head on the pillow from side to side, peers at Patrick with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Not yet,” he says. And then, “I don’t know how many times I’ll be able to come.”

Patrick freezes. Stares at him with sudden realization. 

“You’ve never done this before,” he says, not a question.

He’s so hot. He’s so hot and trusting and willing and fucking ridiculous and Patrick thinks he wants to cry a little. He’s so fucking hard it’s difficult to resist touching himself. Heat inside like a rising fever. 

“Add another,” Jonny says by way of reply.

Two fingers—

It slides in like Jonny’s body’s hungry for it. And as soon as he’s in Jonny’s clamping hands on his wrist and his own dick with a pained, “Wait.”

He’s almost half up, abs working and body shaking. 

Patrick licks his lips slowly, meets Jonny’s eyes and holds them. “You’re so hot,” he says, feels out of his mind with it. Feels like that’s not enough. “How the fuck are you—” He moves his fingers.

Jonny _whines_. No other word for it. A high little sound from the back of his throat and then a loud puff of air through his lips, and his face screws up. He’s not pretty like this, and he’s the hottest thing Patrick’s ever seen.

“You don’t stop, _you’re_ gonna make me cream my pants without touching,” Patrick says, dips in to slide his mouth over Jonny’s, just a wet grab. The movement shifts his hand, his fingers rub over Jonny’s prostate and he groans.

“Feels close,” he gasps against Patrick’s lips. “Shitfuck, Pat, I—”

Part of Patrick wants to tell him to hold on, to drag this out as long as they can. Part of Patrick wants to see him completely unravel _now_. 

“Just come,” he says, kisses Jonny’s temple. “Let me see you come.”

It’s like Jonny was just waiting for this, those words, because he lets go. Flops back on the bed, opens his knees, heels pressed hard into the mattress, one fist back to clenching the sheets, the other still on his cock. And Patrick’s right there with him.

He pumps his fingers in and out of him hard three times—watches Jonny’s hand move in time with him—and then he finds his prostate. He gives it a solid pass, then another, and then just—rubs. Catches him good and doesn’t let up, lets Jonny’s own body movement do the rest. 

Jonny comes with a violent jerk, a twist to his body that forces Patrick to get low between his legs, keep him open and on his back with his shoulders. Glad they didn’t do this in Jonny's little camper or they might have sent the whole thing on its back. 

He doesn’t shoot so much as _leaks_ out. Pulses so wet Patrick drags his tongue up Jonny’s dick, over his hand still holding it, and closes his mouth around him. 

He gives his prostate another rub, and is met by another groan, another little shout of surprise and a tight grip in his hair painful enough he hisses, loses some of the mess in his mouth over Jonny’s balls. 

“You’re a mess, babe,” he says, low enough he’s not sure Jonny hears him. Gets his face smeared with it when he goes down to lick it. 

“Jesus, let up for a sec, I’m gonna fucking die,” Jonny gasps, letting go of Patrick’s hair. And Patrick does, shifts his hand and pulls away but not completely out.

Jonny’s body keeps spasming with aftershocks.

“What the fuck,” he says, hands coming up to cover his face. “What the fuck.”

Patrick wants to come. His dick’s so heavy it’s passed from good to uncomfortable and he can see the wet dark grey spot he’s left on his sweats when he looks down at himself. But he eyes the whole wreck of Jonny’s body and wonders— 

“More?” His voice is wet, cracked. “I think you’ve got another one in you.”

Jonny doesn’t speak. Only blinks heavy at the ceiling for a moment then—nods. Turns his face into the pillow like he’s ashamed or shy, but nods. 

He grabs the back of his own knees, spreads himself and Patrick’s suddenly sad he never got to fuck Jonny on his back like this, to test the result of all the yoga he’s never seen him do. 

His wrist hurts so he changes the angle, shuffles a little close and adds some lube to his hand, enough to stretch Jonny’s hole more. 

Three fingers— 

He avoids his prostate and focuses on a slow slide in and out, something good but known. Not too intense. The clench of his body is sweet, zings through Patrick’s veins and he loves it, so high on it right now he thinks he could be happy with it even if he never felt it again on his cock. 

“I’ve never ignored my own dick for so long” he says with a little laugh. “Do you have any fucking idea how—You—” 

Jonny’s gaze is unfocused, almost wild when he lifts his head and Patrick thinks he’s probably looking similar. Feels like it anyway.

He doesn’t resist when Jonny reaches for him. His wrist aches again from the change in angle but he doesn’t protest. Follows where Jonny wants him to go, hitched up on the bed until Patrick can fingerfuck him while they kiss. 

“Like this,” Jonny says into his mouth, then moans when Patrick curls his fingers. He kisses him messy and open. Keeps trying to make it deeper but has to break for air, for moans, for those good little sounds that he can’t seem to help. As helpless about it as Patrick is in the face of him, his everything.

Patrick just—gives in. 

Gives into Jonny’s mouth, his hands when they cling to him. The whole demand of his body and self and whatever else it is that’s brought Patrick to this moment. He kisses him back with a strange sort of urgency and desire he didn’t know he could feel. Something that says it’s not enough. Something that makes him want to try anyway.

Jonny’s fully fucking his hand now, rolling his hips into it, catching himself where he wants it and comes again that way. Quick and hard and a surprise to both of them. 

His fingers dig painfully into Patrick’s shoulders, his head knocks back against the wall, and he shakes _hard_ under Patrick’s body. Doesn’t spill as much as that first time, but still more than Patrick was expecting, coating his stomach, Patrick’s hand, his wrist.

“You’re amazing,” Patrick whispers, his cheek pressed to Jonny’s, his words slipped easy into his ear. He kisses the crook of Jonny’s neck where he’s so sweaty and laps it up, tastes the salt like he’d taste the sea. 

He’s so hard it’ll hurt when he touches himself. Shouts when Jonny does. Just a brief touch through Patrick’s sweats but he feels himself leak. Feels like he might break. 

Jonny smiles at him, tired and dopey. “Sorry buddy,” he says, slurry. “Kinda down for the count.”

Patrick kisses the corner of his mouth, drags his nose along Jonny’s. “Let me come on you.”

Jonny taps his breastbone with lazy fingers in response.

There’s something almost sad with the way Jonny’s legs close reflextively when Patrick removes his fingers from his body, almost in protection. But it only lasts a second before they’re open again for Patrick to shuffle back in after taking off his sweats.

His cock is thick between them, and they both look at it for a moment without doing anything else until Jonny slides a fingertip along the head to catch the wetness there, then presses it on his tongue. 

“You’re evil,” Patrick says, but smiles, hooks a finger in Jonny’s mouth and lets him suck on it while he takes his dick in his other hand. 

It takes no time at all and he looks into Jonny’s eyes the whole way there.

*

After the cottage, his house—his parents’ house—feels too large. It practically looms over him from where he sits in his car with his hands still on the wheel even though he cut the engine ten minutes ago. The curtains are drawn but he can see the faint glow of the TV in the living room. Everything else is dark. 

For once, he goes in through the front door. 

His dad is watching an old black and white movie Patrick doesn’t recognize, the TV the only source of light in the room. Across from him, Jess is asleep on one of the loveseats. 

Patrick drags his feet to the couch, makes sure his dad hears him, then sits beside him. He remembers many nights like these—waking up late or coming down from his bedroom to scrounge something from the fridge and finding his father here, exactly like this, on the same end of the couch with his arm on the armrest.

“Hey dad,” Patrick says, soft. 

“Used to be a time, I could pick her up and get her upstairs without any issue,” his dad says, just as low. 

Patrick stares at his father’s profile. There are long moving shadows across his cheeks, his nose. It makes him look older, more tired. Maybe he is and Patrick didn’t want to see. 

“I don’t think she’s that heavy,” he says, eventually.

“My back’s not what it used to be.” His dad smiles at him, the traces of age smoothing out for a moment, and it eases something inside Patrick, a loosening in his chest. 

“Okay, old man.”

His dad swats at his leg and points a finger at him, says, “Watch it,” and they both laugh a little as the movie reaches its conclusion. Patrick has no idea what’s going on but he watches in silence just to stick around a little longer. 

“You ready to start next week?” his dad asks during a quiet, dialogue-less moment.

“I am,” Patrick replies, and it sits right with him when he says it. Feels like truth. Even some excitement. 

Another silence and then, “It’s good to have you home, Buzz. We missed you.”

‘We’ not ‘I’. But Patrick doesn’t need him to say it. Knows his dad well enough to know that’s what he means. To know he speaks in terms of family when he means himself.

Patrick swallows thickly. Wants to suddenly apologize for letting them down. For dropping the ball. For fucking off on the other side of the country with no real explanation. They were worried and he didn’t— _couldn’t_ — make it better for so long. Both for them or for himself. And yet the moment Patrick needed them, they were right here. 

He wants to explain. Wants to tell his dad so many things about himself in a way he’s never felt before, but the movie ends and Jess stirs in her seat when the credits start rolling, the music swelling. 

“I’ve missed you too,” Patrick whispers to his dad as he gets up, and crosses the room, crouches in front of the loveseat with his back to his sister.

“Pat?”

“Giddy up,” he says, like when they were kids, taking her or Jackie on his back (Erica would never let him).

She laughs, wraps her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and he holds onto her wrists and lifts her up. They wish their dad goodnight and Patrick carries her up the stairs and to her door.

“That’s my workout for the day,” he says, taps her hands to let her know she can let go.

“I could get used to this,” she says, then untangles her legs, her arms. Punches him lightly on the shoulder. “‘Night. Love ya.”

“Love you too.” 

*

He puts a stop to it the next day.

*

It’s early afternoon and only Jonny’s truck (and his camper) are in the driveway so he assumes he’s alone. He parks on the street and knocks on the door. 

He’s gonna say the words this time. He is. 

“Seriously,” Jonny says when he sees it’s Patrick. “Phone.” He’s smiling, has paint on his cheek, t-shirt so tight and thin and soft-looking, it’s hard not to push him inside, slide his hands underneath it, kiss him. Make this another yesterday—another day of being fed nice food and lounging in bed until Jonny joins him there, gives Patrick some of the best orgasms he’s ever had in his life. Make him laugh. 

If he closes his eyes, he can still see the arching of his body as he comes. Can still feel the ghost clench of him around his fingers, the strength of his grip on Patrick, like he never wanted to let go. 

“I gotta talk to you,” he says, watches the smile slip off Jonny’s face, the little sad curve of it after, the knowing nod. 

They sit in the sunroom with some tea, facing each other. Today the sky is overcast but the light is clear and bright, dappled over the table, Jonny’s forearms and his long fingers curl around his mug. 

He doesn’t know where to start. He’s trying to break up something that was never a relationship to begin with. He’s never really had to do that before, not like this. He did think about ghosting Jonny for a hot second but it felt so wrong he discarded the idea as quickly as it came to him. He doesn’t want to be that guy anymore.

“Patrick, it’s okay,” Jonny says with a small smile. 

“I just—” He sighs. “I need to get my shit together. Now. That’s partly why I came back here and this? What we’re doing? It’s—”

Jonny takes a sip of his tea. “Messy?” he says with a tone like he’s known what Patrick was thinking all along, and that’s annoying.

“Who does that? Who starts fucking his sister’s ex the day after he broke up with her because he wanted to fuck you? That’s fucked up. That’s—”

“First of all,” Jonny says with a raised finger. “I didn’t break up with Jess so I could fuck you. I did because I _wanted_ to, and that wasn’t fair to her. The actual fucking wasn’t like, in my plans when I broke up with her.”

“Then why did you,” Patrick asks, brows furrowed. “Fuck me, I mean.”

Jonny shrugs, looks down at his hands. There’s white paint under his usually clean fingernails, across his knuckles, and Patrick can’t look away.

“I wanted to,” Jonny repeats. “And you were there and you looked like you wanted it too and it happened and then it happened again and I—” He takes a deep breath. “Look. We’re not dating. This isn’t serious. It’s not like I didn’t expect it to end at one point, though I admit I thought it’d be when I left for Canada, but.”

Patrick stays silent. Slides his hands off the table and into his lap, looks outside. This sucks. It really fucking sucks.

“I’m sorry,” Jonny says after a long beat, and Patrick looks sharply at him.

“Why?”

“I could see it was bothering you sometimes, what we were doing, and I didn’t say anything.”

Patrick frowns. Wonders when he’s been so obvious. “I—”

“Truth is,” Jonny continues. “I didn’t really want it to stop. Fuck, it was good, and I— Any moment I wasn’t around your dick I was thinking about being around your dick.”

“My dick’s awesome,” Patrick jokes, smiles a little and then wider when Jonny smiles back. “Yours isn’t so bad either.”

“Oh, thank you. Very kind.” Jonny flips him off. 

They fall back into silence. Jonny picks at the paint on his hands and Patrick thinks about his fingers inside him, makes himself feel the familiar heat spreading inside his core, settling between his legs. Has a wild, sharp thought break inside his head, where he wonders if he’ll ever stop wanting this man. If ten years from now he’ll still think back on these past few weeks and get hard and need to jerk off on his bed like a teenager. If he’ll look for pieces of him in every other man he fucks, dates, maybe marries. 

“I spent five years away,” he says, and Jonny’s hands still at his words. “On the one hand, I think I needed it. I was fucked up and couldn’t accept I was gay and I think the distance helped me figure that out.”

“But?”

Patrick shrugs, takes a too-hot gulp of tea. “Too much of a good thing, I guess? I fucked around a lot. Like. _A lot_. And it was great. Really allowed me to explore shit and I’m not sure I’d have been able to do that if I had to secretly face my family every Sunday night, you know?. If I knew someone could talk to someone could talk to someone. But it got to a point where—I don’t know. I got stuck. I never really held a job for that long, I partied a lot, I had sex. I woke up one day and it’d been five years and almost none of it felt satisfying. And I—I got real homesick, I guess.”

There’s a long silence, then, “Makes sense.”

“What?”

“This,” Jonny says with a wave between them. He leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, pinches his lips together with a hard stare. “You were gone for several years, lots of stuff changed for you during that time. You came back here. That shit can be scary, you know, facing all those things from before. It makes sense that—I don’t know. That you’d want something familiar to escape into.”

Patrick puts his mug down, too loud and sudden, spike of anger making his hand heavy. “Jesus Christ, what are you? My fucking therapist?”

“I’m just saying that—”

“Like you’re any better,” he continues, words sharp and spitting, blood pumping in his ears. “All these months in this fucking house with your fucking sad memories. Like you didn’t want an escape from all that shit, too. Don’t pretend like you know me.”

_You don’t really know me._

Jonny opens his arms, palms up. “Okay fine, so we used each other.”

The problem is that Jonny probably isn’t wrong. Not when it comes to Patrick anyway and how easy he fell into that familiar pattern the moment he came back, the moment he met a guy hot enough to latch onto. Just like before. Needing to keep proving to himself that he was gay gay gay. Super dooper fucking gay. That he didn’t come back to the site of his closet after so many years just to climb back into it, yet unwilling to come out from the get-go. Just letting himself have gay thoughts in his childhood bedroom, in his childhood home, by his childhood pool. He’d fuck anything with a dick, even his sister’s ex. Is that it? 

Is that fucking it?

Or maybe he just wanted a distraction. Maybe that’s all this is. 

“So anyway,” he says, bypassing this whole thing, this whole fight and what it means. 

Jonny gives one sharp humourless laugh that cuts through the air, shakes his head with his eyes closed, moves his jaw like he’s working something to say in his mouth. There’s a beat, and he’s leaning forward again.

“So anyway,” he says, and presses his foot against Patrick’s. Goes where Patrick wants to go. 

“So anyway, one day, my dad mentioned one of the dealership guys retiring and I just had to have that spot. I _needed it_. And I thought, I’m gonna go home. I’m gonna see my family. I’m gonna work hard and be good at it. Fuck California, fuck these sunburns, fuck the palm trees. So I called my dad back and asked him and he said yes and I was leaving two days later and I told myself I’d do it right. No more messes, no more complications.”

“How did that work out for you?” Jonny says, a little kick to Patrick’s leg under the table.

“Not that well!” 

“Sorry, I made it harder for you, I guess,” Jonny says.

“Oh, you made it hard.”

Jonny crinkles his nose in disgust. “Jesus Christ.”

He is so so gorgeous. 

Patrick’s gonna miss him so much. 

Maybe he doesn’t need to say the words. Maybe instead he can just say, “You should fuck me one last time,” as casual as he can, fixed on Jonny’s face to make sure he doesn’t miss anything. Doesn’t want to miss one single thing. “If you want.” 

Jonny looks back into his eyes for a long moment, the only sound between them is their breathing, the scrape of Jonny’s cup on the table as he turns it between his hands. Something flits in his eyes for a moment, too quick for Patrick to catch, and then Jonny’s breaking the contact, staring out through the window.

“I always want,” he says eventually, that tick of a smile back, a slant of his eyes in Patrick’s direction.

Patrick’s chest fills with warmth. “Good,” he says. “Cause I’ve been sitting here half-hard this whole time.”

Jonny barks a laugh. 

*

He fucks Patrick from behind on the bed.

Patrick watches him get undressed, standing by the window with the weak sun soaking his edges bright. He presses a hand to his chest, smiles at Jonny from the other side of the bed, and climbs onto the mattress to lay down on his back. He changes his mind when Jonny joins him, turns on his front and gets on hands and knees.

And it’s good this way. So so good. Using his hands on the wall to push back onto Jonny’s dick while he fucks in hard. Grips Patrick’s hips and slams in with a crack of skin meeting skin. Takes his weight when Jonny lies over his back, wraps his arms under and around Patrick’s shoulders, close with his mouth on Patrick’s hair, tongue dipping in his ear.

They don’t say anything the whole time—when they’ve both come and they’ve both cleaned themselves, they still don’t talk. 

He wants to kiss him one last time. Wants to press him against the wall of the entryway and kiss him long and hard. But he just opens the door and— 

“You did nothing wrong, Patrick.”

—turns around. There’s something sad, in the flat line of Jonny’s mouth that echoes and hooks itself inside Patrick. He grimaces. 

“Debatable,” he says, looks around and takes a step back towards Jonny, lowers his voice. “But I would have, you know. I—I would have fucked you even if you hadn’t broken up with her.”

Ah. There it is.

Pain flits over Jonny’s face—there and gone just as quickly, so that Patrick isn’t sure it was ever there at all. And then he doesn’ see anything because Jonny’s leaning in, pressing their foreheads together, a strong push that Patrick has to meet with his own.

“I can’t regret it,” Jonny says, and Patrick shuts his eyes.

*

He settles down.

*

He starts his new job at his dad’s dealership.

He looks for an apartment.

He calls a few old friends from back in the day.

He has time to see Erica more. He goes jogging with Jackie on the beach every other morning. He helps his mom with a fundraiser. 

He works hard. Wants to prove himself. It’s right and satisfying to be good at this. To take the steps necessary to become even better. He doubles down and sells two cars in his first week even with limited time on the floor. His dad slaps him on the shoulder and smiles, proud. Brings champagne home to celebrate, and Patrick carries that glow for days. 

The panicky, nervy energy that’s constantly under his skin starts to chill the fuck out for the first time in years. 

Time spent with Jess stops being as weird and fraught, at least on his part. She doesn’t know what happened (and Patrick will never tell her). 

Sometimes, he drops by Maddie’s for a bite and catches himself looking over the restaurant to see if Jonny’s there. He looks for his face among the fishermen still out and about when he’s jogging, and only drives past the cottage twice (the pickup and the camper are still there).

He deletes Jonny’s number from his phone. 

But the thoughts are the same. The jerking off like the days before they started hooking up is the same. Patrick hopes one day it’ll just be a good memory, a summer fling that makes him smile, maybe get him a little hot. Nothing more. 

*

That last time, after Jonny came, Patrick dropped on his side to avoid the wet spunk he’d dirtied the sheets with, and Jonny did the same, legs still tangled in Patrick’s. They looked at each other while catching their breaths, and Patrick doesn’t know why but he reached out for him. Lifted a hand and brushed his fingers over Jonny’s forehead, an imaginary lock of hair. Jonny’s eyelids had fluttered closed. It’d been silent. He’d thought about closing his own eyes, falling asleep or pretending to, to buy himself some time.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t look away.

Every night he thinks about that. Feels the sweaty skin of Jonny’s forehead under his fingertips. Sees the way he closed his eyes, the tightness, like Patrick’s touch was hurting him. 

*

Fall arrives. 

The trees change colors. The temperature drops overnight. And the town empties itself of tourists.

Patrick never appreciated this period as much when he was a kid. Fall meant the end of the holidays and going back to school. But there’s something nice about the town going back to something that feels more personal, more _theirs_. Where they can cater to each other and not strangers. 

The weather catches up to the season change. It’s pouring down again, cold and grey, and there’s a sharpness to the storm that’s devoid of summer altogether but it still reminds him of that day. The day at the cottage. Cozy upstairs in that empty room except for the bed and a lamp and two paperbacks—closed and private, hot and sweaty and lazy.

“Pat!” 

Patrick startles, kicked out of his daydream. Three pairs of eyes look back at him over the monopoly board with the exact same frowny line between their brows. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Erica asks.

“Yeah, you’ve been weird,” Jackie adds.

Patrick raises his eyebrows. “I’ve been weird.”

“You have,” Erica agrees. “You’ve been quiet.”

“I tend to be sometimes.”

“Not like this,” Jackie says.

Patrick crosses his arms over his chest, stretches his legs out. “Maybe I’ve changed.”

“You have,” Erica agrees again. 

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Jess says, glares her middle-sister glare at her sisters, and Patrick would smile if he didn’t feel the tiny defensive sparks of anger at being ganged up on explode in his lungs. 

“Of course it’s not a bad thing.” Erica turns to her. “But—”

“He doesn’t have to talk if he doesn’t want to.”

“But he used to,” Jackie adds.

This is so familiar he can’t even get mad about it, has to smile a little, and then tilts his head back against the couch. He takes a deep breath, holds it, says, “I’m gay,” on the exhale and listens to the silence that crashes over the room.

Ha. 

The Eldest Kane with the win.

For longer than he cares for, the only sound in the living room is the rain hitting the windows, the high whistle of wind coming through the chimney and the fireplace. The lights flicker ominously and it almost makes him burst out laughing, like this is a cheesy murder mystery and he’s just confessed to a crime.

Patrick. In the living room. With a gigantic dick. 

He eventually peers back at them. Jackie looks like he’s dropped a bomb on her which he guesses he did. Jess is scanning his face like she’s looking for something and isn’t finding it. Erica just looks confused.

“I wasn’t expecting high fives and a fucking parade, but this silence is kinda killing me right now,” he says, leans forward with his elbows on his knees, nudges Jackie with his foot. “Close your mouth.”

It’s Jess who breaks the silence. “Is this why you left?” she asks, and her voice sounds small and sad. Twists something inside him. 

“No,” he says immediately then stops. “I mean, kinda I guess. But I didn’t really know that at the time. I just needed space.”

“From us,” Jackie whispers.

“From myself, I think.” He runs a hand through his hair, ruffles the back of it. “I haven’t really—I don’t know—fucking analyzed my whole thought process. I was looking for something that I couldn’t find here.”

“How long have you known,” Erica asks, peeved, and he knows the clipped tone of it, the anger to hide the hurt, so he tries not to take it personally. 

He takes a deep breath. “I guess a part of me knew when I left, but being able to say it? Like, maybe 2-3 years.”

“But—” Jackie starts. “But you’ve been here in that time, we’ve talked on the phone, you never said.”

“I’m saying it now.”

“Were you scared we wouldn’t, like, accept you?” Erica says. “That we wouldn’t love you anymore?” Her voice shakes and Patrick suddenly understands. They’re so close in age, for a huge chunk of their childhood, Erica and him told each other pretty much everything. All little kid secrets, talk at night when they could hear their parents fight. Even later, as teenagers, when they fought over everything they’d always tell each other the important stuff. But—But this was important and he didn’t tell her. 

“No.” And that’s the truth. He worried maybe things would change, but he never thought his sisters would turn their backs on him. “I just wasn’t ready. Though whatever’s happening right now is stressing me the fuck out.”

That’s when the monopoly board goes flying across the floor and he’s tackled by three grown women. The houses and hotels scatter everywhere so that they’ll probably miss one when they pick them up until their dad steps on it in the middle of the night one day, but he can’t care too much about it because he’s being hugged by his favorite people. 

“When are you gonna tell mom and dad?” Jess asks once they’re all piled up on the couch.

His first instinct is to say that he doesn’t have to tell them, that it shouldn’t be a given. But he was always going to do it so… “At dinner tonight, I guess.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jackie says, taking his hand in hers.

When he does, he’s met with the same shocked silence, his mom’s fork frozen in the air halfway to her mouth like a caricature. 

She asks the same questions. 

It’s a bit annoying that he’s the one having to comfort others. To reassure them that they didn’t do anything wrong or made him feel like he couldn’t talk to them, that they’re good sisters, good parents, even though _he’s_ the one coming out. But they mean well and Patrick loves them so much, and it’s not worth the hurt. 

He does wonder, briefly, if Jonny had to do the same when he came out to his family. How that went for him. What they said. How did he feel about it. Was it like Patrick: relieved and happy and slightly annoyed but mostly like he finally could truly go forward, get unstuck. Like he could finally use the whole capacity of his lungs to breathe and they could take so much more than he thought they could. 

He wants to know. 

His dad doesn’t say much—never that good with words and emotions—but he hugs Patrick tight for long enough Patrick tears up. 

*

He wishes he still had Jonny’s number to tell him.

*

He sits in his car with his palms flat on the wheel and stares into nothing. He’s still in the driveway, the key in the ignition but the engine off, and he’s thinking about driving to the cottage. Just turn the key, press on the gas and go. Park in the street. Knock on the door. 

He goes through the whole drive in his head until someone strikes his window and makes him jump.

“Where are you going?” Jess asks with a little apologetic smile. Her face is red, her hair sweaty from her run. 

I fucked him, he wants to tell her. I’m sorry. I fucked him and I can’t stop thinking about him and I think I—

“Nowhere,” he says, opening the door. “Was just looking for my sunglasses.”

She nods, runs a hand over her face, her hair then… wipes it over Patrick’s cheeks and bolts with a laugh, a high shriek when she looks back and sees Patrick chasing. 

*

Things are going like he wanted them to go, and yet he still wakes in the middle of the night, hard and aching. And he still wakes up too early. Still drives to the beach to see the sunrise, walks down to the waves, smells the salt, the fish, the watery edges.

He watches the fishermen but never sees him.

*

(A bit of an infatuation)

*

He thinks of Jonny all the time.

*

He misses Jonny.

*

All the time.

*

And he thinks:

_You don’t really know me_

*

And he thinks that:

These are the things he knows about Jonathan Toews (in no particular order)

He’s Canadian. He speaks French. He owns a cottage in Patrick’s hometown that he inherited from his grandparents and the shed is full of photo albums he’s stolen his favorites from and also he only owns a bed and some lamps. He renovates and flips houses. He’s tall and tanned and fit and blistery hot. He’s got the prettiest cock Patrick’s ever seen and he knows how to use it. A pretty mouth too, good at sucking dick. But he can’t deepthroat and that’s okay because Patrick’s dick is just that big.

He’s a sore loser. He deadpans. He’s got really really dark eyes that look black but really are different shades of dark brown and Patrick likes being close enough to see them. He fucks good. 

He fucks really good.

He can come handsfree if you press on his prostate enough and it’s the hottest thing you’ll ever witness in your life.

His dad is from Winnipeg but moved to Québec to practice his French and fell in love and stayed and that’s a good role model. He has a little brother named David. He’s kind and kind of an asshole. He’s bi. He dated Patrick’s sister and that’s a problem.

When he sleeps, he radiates heat and cuddles and Patrick kinda digs it and regrets not having it more than once. 

Patrick regrets not having a lot of things regarding Jonny more than once. 

His fingernails are clean and well trimmed and his pubes are shaved and his skin is soft and his thighs are huge and his ass—His ass is the kind of ass Patrick wants to get lost in forever. He’s never asked but he bets Jonny played hockey and Patrick’s played hockey too, and he should have asked. He bets Jonny’s a Habs fan and that would be wrong, but forgivable. He should have asked.

He’s gorgeous.

He sweats a lot.

He owns an old as fuck camper straight out of the 70s that he could renovate and Patrick wants to ask if he hasn’t because it has sentimental value or if Jonny just really has poor taste (that would explain the Habs). 

He’s a flirt. He smokes weed. He likes to be watched. He can take three fingers in the ass without any more prep (not tested but Patrick’s putting it out there). He blushes easily especially when he voices what he wants in bed, or when he’s talked filth at, and Patrick really really likes doing it to him. 

He likes: fishing, nutrition stuff, the gluten free pancakes at Maddie’s, the gym, things in his ass (bears repeating), kissing, Patrick (maybe?). He can: cook a fish on the grill, paint walls, change a spare tire, fuck good (bears repeating), drive Patrick crazy.

He drives Patrick absolutely. Fucking. Crazy. 

p.s. He’s a terrible fuckbuddy because fuckbuddies aren’t supposed to do this to you. Major fail, F all around. Be better.

*

There is no fucking paper in this house. Since when have his parents gone paperless on everything—there aren’t even any fucking post-its. He’s bangining around the kitchen drawers, the office. Nothing. He bets one of his sisters has a notepad or notebook or some fancy stationary but he’s not about to ask because he’s doing something he shouldn’t and he’s not gonna tell.

He finally finds some of his old high school notebooks in a box on the shelf of his closet and flips through math notes and diagrams to the back where some pages are blank. He rips them out.

He writes the list. Writes it quick and messy because he never handwrites anything anymore, and then leaves a ton of space after it where he scribbles ‘TO FILL’, folds them and puts them in an envelope he found in the kitchen junk drawer (they have envelopes but not paper???)

Nevermind, he’s on a mission. 

He can’t think about it. He can’t stop. Has to hurry before the feeling passes, before he talks himself out of it. 

He jumps in his car, drives to the cottage—the camper is there but not the truck, he can’t tell if Jonny’s gone—and slides the envelope into the mail slot. Jumps back in his car, drives back home, opens a beer. 

Fuck.

Jonny wasn’t wrong that day at the cottage: Patrick doesn’t know him. Not really. He knows _things_ about him, though. Enough it makes Patrick want to know everything.

He wants to know everything. 

*

So he gets super drunk.

*

He doesn’t know what he expects. Jonny might be in Canada right now and he won’t read the poor excuse of a love letter Patrick wrote in the kind of romantic fugue state found only in his sister’s young adult novels until he’s back… whenever.

Or he read it that day.

*

So Patrick drives back to the cottage.

*

Fall is fully grown by now. Red and golden leaves litter Jonny's front yard, his driveway. There’s a chill in the air that forced Patrick to put on a sweater, a beanie, and it smells like decay and wood smoke and salt—always salt. 

Jonny’s truck is still absent but Patrick knocks anyway, unsure what he’d prefer to happen. He shoves his hands in his pockets and waits, takes a sudden step back down the porch when the door opens.

Jonny.

“Jonny.”

Tall, tanned, fit, wearing sweatpants and the McGill sweater he had on the first time Patrick met him. No visible paint on his face or hands.

Patrick’s heart skips at the sight of him. 

“Patrick,” he says with slight surprise.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be here. Your truck…”

“Is being serviced,” Jonny says. “I’m leaving next week. You could have called.”

“I deleted your number.” 

“Oh. Right.” 

Patrick can practically see the shuttering down—his eyes go flat, he leans on the doorway, crosses his arms. 

A gust of wind blows across the street, drags dead leaves over the tip of Patrick’s shoes. He fumbles. “I—Work’s going great. I like it. I came out to my family, that went well.”

Jonny’s expression softens. “That’s great. I’m happy for you.”

“Got an apartment too,” Patrick continues. “Just a small one bedroom. Attic space in a house not far from the cove beach. You can see the ocean from the living room window.”

“Sounds nice.”

Christ. He’s not giving Patrick anything. “It is. Moving this weekend. And I—” 

“I got your letter.”

Patrick’s eyes snap to his and he feels like he’s just hit a crack in the pavement and stumbled. “Yeah.” He laughs nervously. “Yeah that’s why I’m here.”

Something flits over Jonny’s eyes, and he straightens up, looks away. “Did you—” He clears his throat. “Did you want to take it back?”

“What?”

“It’s okay if—”

“No!”

“Oh.”

He shifts again, tick at the corner of his mouth when he glances at Patrick, and Patrick takes a step forward. Leaves crackle under his feet.

“I just needed to know if you were here or had left already. To know—to know if I would have to wait months before you got it. It was a very—quick driveby delivery, and I didn’t think and it was driving me crazy.” Another step. More than in arms reach. He looks up to meet Jonny’s eyes. “Everything about you kinda drives me crazy.”

“So you’ve said.” Jonny looks down, plays with the sleeve of Patrick’s sweater. He’s quiet when he says, “What about Jess?”

Patrick’s stomach squeezes and he takes a deep breath. “I—I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you first, see how you felt if—if this could be a thing. I want—”

Jonny’s hand moves from his sleeve to his waist where he grabs the fabric tight. “You’re American,” he says. “You have three younger sisters. You spent five years in California and you’re gay. You sell cars. You have a good dick and—”

“You’re gonna make yourself blush.” 

Jonny laughs quietly, closes his eyes. Breathes. Tips forward until his forehead is pressed against Patrick’s, like the last time they saw each other but completely different at the same time.

“I missed you,” he whispers. “I didn’t want to, but I did.”

Patrick wants to stay right here, with Jonny’s breath soft across his face, the heat of him radiating so much Patrick can feel it even though he’s not really touching him. His soap smells like pine. The wind blows again, and Patrick can tell it’s going to rain, a wetness to the air, sharp with the scent of leaves, and he doesn’t want to move. 

“This is gonna be messy, at least for a while,” Jonny says eventually, first to pull back, and Patrick follows, can’t help it. Bumps his head on Jonny’s chest and breathes him in, feels the quick press of a kiss to his hair.

“I can do a little messy,” he says. “We can make it work.”

Rain starts splattering over the small porch roof, and Jonny pulls him closer under it so he doesn’t get half wet. 

“Soooooo,” Patrick drags after another long moment, leaning back . “I wanna do this right and it’s okay if you wanna take it slow and just—I don’t know, pick things up when you come back next year. We can do the phone thing in the meantime.”

“Oh, you have a phone?”

“Shut up.” He laughs. “What I mean is nothing needs to happen now, I’m good. I’m good with waiting and I’m good. I want this. I want it to work, and—”

“I think you should sit on my dick,” Jonny interrupts him, tugs at his sweater, back inside the cottage. “Like. Now.”

“Oh, thank fuck.”

Jonny grins, gets him into the entrance and closes the door. Presses Patrick against it with his whole body, and Patrick shivers. He leans in to whisper in his ear. “I got a new couch.”

Patrick turns his face to kiss Jonny’s jaw. “A couch? A fucking luxury.”

“Only the best for you, buddy.”

*

(A bit of a—) 

*

“I do,” Jonny mumbles, lips sticky on Patrick’s collarbone, still catching his breath. His arms are tight around Patrick’s body, holding him in his lap with his dick still inside him.

Patrick holds his head, kisses his hair. “What?”

“Like you.”

*

p.s.

Played hockey? Yes. (Sweet)

Habs? Yes. (Not sweet)

Three fingers? Y E S.

_Easy._

**Author's Note:**

>  **on cheating;** So technically there is not cheating in this fic if we define cheating strictly as 'sleeping with someone while in a relationship with someone else'. Jonny never has sex with Patrick while he is dating Jess. But. Before the break up, there's flirting, and some tense situations of almost kissing, almost touching, and a moment that leads to the break up where Jonny watches Patrick jerk off. Jess is never told of this, or of the sexual relationship they embark on after Jonny leaves her. 
> 
> I'm allthebros on tumblr and all_thebros on twitter <3


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